Page 27 of A Deal with the Rebellious Marquess
‘By then Adam felt he was too old. He said he didn’t want to die and leave behind a half-raised child.’ She’d talked a lot about what Dead Adam had wanted. What did she want?
‘But you felt differently? Did you want children?’ Did she still want children?
‘Yes,’ she breathed the answer quietly into the night. ‘It was a point of contention between us, the one thing we never agreed on.’ Ah, so she and Dead Adam had fought. Argued. Had unresolved issues. Children. Time in the country. She’d given up a lot for that marriage. Did she see that? With Griffiths’s fortune, she could have spent her days any way she chose: shopping and charity work, decorating and redecorating the town house. Instead, she’d chosen to spend it working at theTribunein order to be close to her husband. Perhaps she’d understood the risk of not doing so—the risk of losing him, the risk of watching her marriage disintegrate.
Something potent, part admiration and part envy, stirred in Jasper. Fleur Griffiths was loyal to the bone. To be the recipient of that loyalty, that devotion, would be the honour of a lifetime. Such dedication should not be given idly to just any man or woman. A person would need to be worthy of it, would need to earn it. Sitting here in the moonlight with her, he realisedhewould like to be worthy of it, even if only for a short time.
‘What of you? Have you ever been in love?’ she asked. She was deflecting and exacting a littlequid pro quo. But wasn’t this also a sign of trust, proof that she’d meant it last night when she’d said she cared for him?
‘I thought I was once. I was young and foolish, though. It didn’t work out, obviously. Hence, my mother’s need for a list. I am more cautious these days.’ He’d not truly understood how attractive a title could be for ambitious young ladies in those days.
She elbowed him in the ribs playfully. ‘And yet you’re here with me. That doesn’t sound like the cautious choice.’ There was nothing cautious about Fleur Griffiths, it was what he liked about her. She was bold but vulnerable, brave but scared. But despite the vulnerability and the fear, she did not hold back, did not let those things stop her.
He felt her draw away from him and some of the magic went out of the evening. He was losing her. ‘I should not have said that. It was very leading.’ She rose and shook out her skirts.
He rose with her, a hand at her arm. ‘It was verybold. You know I like that about you. You admit your feelings. You speak your mind. Don’t ever change that. Not for me, not for anyone.’ Perhaps that had been the appeal of Dead Adam besides his kisses. He’d allowed her to speak her mind. Few men would. Fleur was a lot of woman to handle. No, not to handle. No one handled Fleur Griffiths. He’d do best to remember that. ‘You may be as you please here, Fleur.Wemay be as we please.’ He let his eyes linger on hers, his gaze conveying the unspoken message of his words. Rosefields could be their sanctuary. Here, they could be Jasper and Fleur until it was time to return to London. Did she understand?
Chapter Fifteen
Her breath caught. He was asking her to trust him, to be his lover in this place where they could keep the world out, where others wouldn’t dictate whether or not they could be seen together. It was a chance to answer the question she’d posed for herself at the station in London just this morning: what could they be if they had a chance to just be Jasper and Fleur, removed from the circumstances of their association? Her body thrummed with the innate recognition that she wanted to know. She wanted to know that answer very much.
‘If you dare, I dare,’ she breathed, the realisation settling on her that she dared more than trusting him, she dared her heart, she dared a testing of the feelings she’d not yet been willing to name. She was falling for Jasper Bexley, the man. She could not keep shoving that knowledge to the side.
He moved into her, hands at her waist, his mouth hovering inches from hers as he whispered, ‘I dare.’ He sealed it with a kiss, claiming her mouth with his. This was not like the ravenous kisses they’d shared before in her office or at the Harefields’. This was unhurried, but no less heated for it. The slow burn that spread through her body carried its own brand of intoxication, its warmth searing away opposition in its wake until it was impossible to not want this, to not want him.
All the reasons why this would be a poor idea were obliterated with the stroke of his tongue against her lips, the press of his body against hers, reminding her of the possibilities between them, not the problems. He made her hope—perhaps she did deserve a second chance—it was a wild, reckless hope, full of moonlight’s magic and none of daylight’s realities.
Her hands reached for his neckcloth, moving to untie it. He chuckled against her mouth, his own hands disengaging to reach for hers. ‘Tonight, I want to be with you in a proper bed, without worry of discovery hastening our lovemaking. We have all night; I want to make the most of it.’ It was a promise of pleasure, a pledge of protection. He would not take her here, out of doors.
All night.
The prospect sent a delightful tremor through her even as the thought came to her that he’d also want things in exchange—not merely physical passion.
I want to be with you in a proper bed.
She was ready to give that, ready to feel the comfort of being with another. He’d want the things that went with it. He’d not said he wanted tohave herin a proper bed, bedding her like some archaic medieval lord, but that he wantedto be with her. He was asking for her trust, for her presence in a way she’d not given it to him before. This was going to be a deliberate act of lovemaking, not the outcome of spontaneous, riotous emotions, which could be excused in the morning.
And I want it. With him, came the warm thought.
Upstairs, his bedroom was lit with a single lamp that bathed the space in a soft light, a welcoming light. Covers on the tall, carved oak four-posted bed had been pulled back and Jasper’s robe had been laid out. The small intimacies sent a shiver of anticipation through her, a reminder that lovemaking was a domestic act, a large intimacy full of smaller ones.
‘Shall I play the maid tonight?’ Jasper whispered at her ear, his hands already working the laces of her gown, making it a rhetorical question. He pressed a kiss to her neck and she let the warmth of him seep into her skin as he continued his slow seduction. He undressed her with his hands, his mouth dropping kisses to welcome the newly bared skin.
She gave an appreciative sigh as he pressed a kiss to her back. ‘You are remarkably good at undressing.’
‘Not undressing,’ he murmured, his hands unfastening petticoat tapes. ‘Unveiling.’ The word was punctuated by the soft landing of her petticoat and the silent fall of her crinoline cage shortly after. The last of her undergarments gave way. She was entirely nude, entirely free to feel him against her skin—his chest to her back, his hips to her buttocks, the hard length of him making itself known through the fabric of his trousers as it butted up against her.
His hands cupped her breasts, kneading them gently, thumbs brushing over her nipples in languid strokes, his mouth at her ear. ‘Have you ever seen Michelangelo’s sculpturesThe Slaves?’ he whispered. ‘They are statues cut from marble, but they are not entirely finished, on purpose so that it seems as if the marble is a chrysalis the figures are emerging from.’
He nipped at her ear. ‘What makes them magical is the sense of effort, of energy one senses when viewing them. It’s as though the statues are actively struggling to be free of the marble, the way a baby chick struggles to pierce the membrane of an egg, or a foal struggles to be born.’ He blew gently into her ear. ‘Unveiling you is like that, Fleur. Each piece of clothing discarded releases you.’
Yes, yes, to all of that, her heart sang. To be free. The clothes were just a metaphor. It was the world she was being freed from. Here in this chamber, naked with this man, she need not worry about the newspaper, about the pressures of being a woman alone in a man’s world. She needed only to be herself. She turned in his arms, catching his mouth in a kiss of her own. ‘Let me give you that freedom, too. Let me release you from your marble chrysalis,’ she whispered, her hands working loose the snowy folds of his cravat, carefully setting aside the gold stickpin.
She undid the buttons of his waistcoat, unfastened the links at his cuffs, liking the domestic feel of helping a man—her man. ‘Have you ever considered why it is that a woman must be undressed from the back but a man is always undressed from the front?’ She slid him a coy glance as she pulled his shirt tails from the waistband of his trousers.
‘Are you going to tell me?’ He nuzzled her neck, his mouth teasing her as she worked.
‘I have my opinions.’ She slid her hands beneath his shirt along the warm planes of his chest, wanting to feel him before she saw him. Hefeltgood, warm and solid to the touch. What exquisite musculature he had. She undid his shirt, button by button, outlining her premise. ‘I think it’s about power, about self-sufficiency. A woman cannot help herself, even in a pinch. In an emergency a gentleman can dress himself. But the wealthier a woman is, the less likely she is able to perform that simple daily function for herself.’
