“So this is the mysterious cellar that has kept you a prisoner for so long.” She walked into the room and glanced at the empty shelves. “I’m a little disappointed. I was expecting to find you wrist-deep in some gruesome experiment.”
“Last week, perhaps,” he said. “This week I am a changed man.”
“I rather liked the old one.”
“You’ll like the new one much more.”
“Are you going somewhere?” she asked looking down at the crate full of scientific equipment.
“That all depends on you.”
His hands throbbed with the need to touch her. He walked over to her and untied the ribbons on her bonnet. She watched his fingers move with keen interest and after placing the item on the table, he worked on removing her gloves.
“My heart is all a flutter, Mr. Stone,” she said, the seductive lilt unmistakable. “As I wonder what devilish experiment you have in store for me.”
“Oh, I have plenty of things in store for you, Miss Linwood.” He kissed her then, hard and quick, as he wouldn’t be able to stop himself if he did anything more lascivious. “Marry me,” he whispered. “Say you’ll be my wife, Rebecca.”
Her hand flew up to cover her mouth, her eyes wide with surprise. “Marry you? Gabriel if this is because you don’t want me to go to Egypt then there’s no need to ...”
“This is not about your trip to Egypt,” he said, grabbing her by her elbows and drawing her closer. “Rebecca. I’m in love with you. I’ve been in love with you since you sauntered into Banbury’s library and attempted to describe the uses of a lectern. Even before that. Since you sat in protest on my front steps and waved at every passerby.”
She dropped her hand as her eyes welled with tears. “Do you mean it, Gabriel? Tell me I’m not asleep in my bed, dreaming.”
“I will spend the rest of my life showing you how much I mean it. We will go to Egypt together. We’ll ride camels across the desert, eat exotic fruit, so I’m forced to lick the juice from your lips, roll about naked in a tent.”
She gave a little chuckle. “Well, you certainly appear to have thought it through.”
He’d spent the night with a throbbing erection and thought of nothing else. “And when you want to come home, I’ll live with you, or you can live here, or we’ll buy a new house together.”
She placed her hand on his cheek. “I love you,” she said.
“Rebecca, I love you so much it’s killing me. I’m done with all of this,” he said waving his hand at the room. “I want to start again, with you.”
She turned away from him, walked over to the door and a pain with the force of a lightning bolt shot through his heart. Pulling the key from the front of the door, she closed it, thrust it into the hole in the back and locked them in.
“You know, my bedchamber used to be a place of nightmares,” she said undoing the buttons on her Spencer and shrugging out of it. “Whenever I thought of going in there, I’d feel cold shivers running down my spine. That was until we spent the night in my bed and the morning looking for spiders. Now I feel shivers for an entirely different reason.”
She removed the pins from her hair; let it tumble around her shoulders. He tried to follow her train of thought, but desire burst forth in all its wondrous glory. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I want to start again, with you. I want to marry you, Gabriel,” she said moving to the buttons on his waistcoat. “I want to travel to Egypt with you. I want to help you banish the ghosts of the past, starting with this room.”
When she yanked his shirt over his head and ran her fingers through the hair on his chest, he took her mouth in a desperate frenzy. “Have I told you I love you?” he muttered dragging his mouth away to rain kisses down her neck.
“Yes,” she panted, the tips of her fingers grazing his nipples. “But I would like to hear it fall from your lips during the throes of passion.”
“Do that again and I will shout loud enough to wake the pharaohs from their tombs.”
Thank you!
Thank you for reading A Curse of the Heart.
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Adele x
What You Desire