Page 20 of The Widower Without a Will
And Martin felt as if she had reached into his soul to pluck out words he would never have found himself.Without knowing what he did, he crossed the carriage to sit beside her and take her hand in his.
She blushed.“Is that terrible of me, do you think?”
“It is human, which makes it both terrible and beautiful.”He wrapped one palm beneath her hands and the other above them, holding onto the precious person she was.“I grieved Lolly deeply for years, and I still miss her, but what I grieve now is my children being young and my life being unlived and optimism about the years unfurling before me.”
She leaned into his grasp.“I miss being someone.Even on my worst days, I was Kenneth’s wife.He relied on me.The village relied on me.I was a help, not a burden.And now I’m—” Those tears flooded her eyes again.“I’m an old woman that Mr.Sebright did not recognize, even though he turned me out of my home just last week.”
He couldn’t help it: he cupped his gloved fingers around her chin.“You are someone, Mrs.Bellamy.You are someone spectacular.”
Her lips parted, but no words came.They were both leaning in, and, though a dim warning somewhere in Martin’s head tried to stop him, with a soft jolt of the carriage, they kissed.
He had not shared a romantic kiss with anyone since Lolly died, and oh, how that first touch flooded his body with youth.Mrs.Bellamy tasted of white wine—or what he remembered of white wine from before he gave up Continental imports—a delicious, dry sweetness that he wanted to inhale with every breath.He couldn’t help but linger, especially not when her hand slid behind his ear to hold him close and her thumb swept across his cheek in a tender caress.When the carriage jostled, he grasped her waist and remembered what it was to hold someone against his body.Bliss blanketed his mind, quieting his thoughts, so that he felt only a fuzzy joy of lips, tongue, fingers, knees.
He had told himself all these years he did not need a woman’s touch.
He had not considered how much he wanted it.
And he especially wantedthiswoman.The woman whose lips he plundered and whose skin set his own on fire.Mrs.Bellamy, his friend, who somehow knew his deepest regrets and still admired him.
Her breath grew ragged.So did his.Their hands remained on his neck, her waist, his chest.Their clothes did not loosen, her hair did not shake free from its coiffure.His cock, harder than it had been in decades, did not approach her skirts.Yet the kiss continued, growing more delicious with every second, and Martin began to believe it would never end.
Then the carriage slowed.The voices of workers calling to each other in the fields filtered through the windows.A horse neighed.
And Martin remembered decorum.Propriety.The fact that Mrs.Bellamy was a widow in his care, not a wife to be enjoyed.
The pleasure of kissing her was almost too strong for his principles to break through—but Martin had lived six decades as a man of principle.Somehow, he withdrew his hands from her waist.He loosened hers from around his face and placed them in her lap.Worst of all, he forced his mouth to separate from hers.
They smiled at each other.And their fingers, devils that they were, intertwined.It was only at the last moment, when the carriage entered the sweep in front of Northfield Hall where anyone from the household could see them, that Martin returned to the bench opposite hers.
What a wonderful kiss.
How terrible that he had let it happen.
How horribly he already wished it could happen again.
As Boyle opened the door to help them out, Mrs.Bellamy said, “Thank you for your assistance this afternoon, sir.”
“I am at your disposal, Mrs.Bellamy.”
She smiled, and he smiled, and Martin knew it would be up to him to resist her from here on out.
Chapter Eight
Onlyafoolwouldpursue a love affair with a lord of the realm.
Apparently, Martha was a fool.
It had been one thing to romanticize Lord Preston while acting as his temporary secretary.Imagining deeper meaning in his compliments and suggestive desire in his looks had been a way of lightening her days—making her feel young again, even.
But now he had kissed her.
Martha didn’t know how to keep her head on straight after such a kiss.
She would have kept kissing him forever.Even after Lord Preston pulled away, there had been such desire glimmering in his expression that Martha had nearly thrown herself back onto his mouth to resurrect their embrace.
But the carriage had stopped, and they had descended as if they were only a lord and his dependent, and Martha could not even keep holding his hand.Lord Preston excused himself to examine the roof of the stable.
Martha was too muddled with desire to do anything but retreat to her room, claiming to the maid Renee that she needed a lie-down.
