Laurel made a choked sound somewhere between laughter and a sob. ‘Idiot. Men do that sort of thing all the time I expect.’
‘I don’t,’ he pointed out. ‘At least, never when the person with me meant so much to me. I wouldn’t mind repeating the experience with you. I have pocketed some feathers. The amount this evening cost, I thought the least they could do was to throw those in.’
The sound became more of a chuckle. ‘Oh, don’t tease me! How am I ever going to pay you back?’
‘You cannot, it will take months. Years. A whole lifetime, in fact. And here we are at the Belle Sauvage.’
The light was brightening and the yard was beginning to work up to its full early-morning bustle. Patrick paid the driver and then reached into the carriage. ‘Come here, Laurel. You can’t walk through the yard in those slippers.’
She protested faintly but did not struggle as he took her in his arms and walked across the yard to the accompaniment of whistles from the stable boys.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she mumbled into his lapel and he realised that her worries went deeper than humour could reach.
‘The key is in my pocket,’ he said as they reached his door. ‘Can you find it?’
‘Put me down,’ Laurel suggested as she scrabbled in his pockets. ‘No, here it is.’
‘I’m not putting you down until I reach the bed,’ Patrick said, shouldering the door open and striding across the room. ‘There. Not as comfortable as the one we’ve been using, but it will do. Now, will you stay here until I come back?’ She looked doubtful, biting her lip. ‘Give me your word, Laurel. I don’t want to have to take you to my bank looking like that, but I will unless I’m certain you’ll be here when I return.’
‘You won’t want me after we get to Cornwall, I’m sure. I’m too ignorant, too naive, for you.’ This is love, isn’t it? Love and lust, all mixed up into one delicious, heartbreaking emotion.
Patrick knelt by the bed, making her scoot back against the pillows. ‘Listen to me. I love you, Laurel. I love the way you kiss, I love the way you taste, I love your courage and your humour and the way you feel in my arms. I have known you only days—yet within minutes I felt I had been waiting for you all my life.’
‘Oh, Patrick.’
‘Are you going to argue with me? Tell me you do not like me? You may not love me yet, but I will not rest until I have made you happy.’
‘I believe you. I love you,’ she said simply, suddenly utterly certain, catching his hands as he gestured with them. ‘I thought it might just be desire, but it is all mixed up together. Make love to me.’
He stared at her, the smile spreading slowly across his face until the joy danced in his eyes. ‘I love you, Laurel Vernon.’ He took off his coat.
‘Patrick? I thought you were going to the bank.’
‘It won’t go away.’ He ripped off the crumpled neck cloth and sat down to yank at shoes and stockings. ‘I want to make love to you somewhere untainted by silks and perfume and money and fear. I want to make love to you on this rather lumpy mattress with the world going by outside the door. No ropes, no feathers, no artifice. Just you and me.’
‘Oh, yes.’ This was no fairy tale, this plain inn room with the sound of post horns and shouting ostlers, the thud of running feet along the gallery on the other side of the thin wall. This was reality. This was the beginning of the rest of her life.
Laurel pulled off the gaudy silk and threw it across the room. ‘You’ll have to buy me a gown and petticoats, as well,’ she said.
‘Hmm?’ He wasn’t listening to her. ‘Your hair. So long.’ Patrick reached out and touched it and she felt a little gasp escape her lips as though his
hand had brushed her breast. Her nipples hardened and she leaned into his touch. He ran his fingers through the heaviness of her hair, lifting it and letting it flow free, his body tense as though he was focused on that one sensation alone.
He pushed her back onto the pillows, following her down with his weight, one hand still sifting through the tangled weight of her hair. His mouth on hers was gentle but possessive. She knew him now, the taste and the feel; she understood how to answer the probing tongue with little strokes of her own, with tiny nips of her teeth on the fullness of his lower lip, and all the time she let herself sink deeper into the reality of him. So much to learn about him, a lifetime to do it in.
She was so lucky, she thought hazily. Perhaps her friend Meg was, as well, if she understood Patrick’s cryptic remarks about Lord Brandon. But nothing would make Meg truly happy until she found her sisters.
Patrick nipped at her ear and Laurel pushed her hands between them, felt the hard, flat plane of his stomach tighten as her hands skimmed down to the waistband of his breeches. She wriggled under him as she pushed them down and he arched up so she could lick and nip at his nipples, fascinated by the way they knotted, as hers did, loving the rough masculinity of the hair on his chest as she ran her fingers through it.
They tumbled over, off balance as he struggled out of his breeches and, released from his weight, Laurel slid farther until she could take him in both hands, stroke up the satin skin over hot, rigid muscle. Instinct overcame bashfulness and she dipped her head, took him in her mouth, spread her hands up to his chest to hold him and marvelled as Patrick groaned and fell back. Hers senses were full of him, under her hands she could feel his pulse thundering. Such power, she thought hazily, experimenting with tongue and lips as he shuddered.
Then he twisted, reaching for her, lifting her until she was straddling his hips. ‘Come here,’ he said, his voice husky and she rose and let herself sink onto him, inch by aching inch as he filled her, completed her.
‘I love you, Patrick Jago,’ she said, holding him tight within her. ‘Take me home.’
‘Oh, yes.’ He bore up, lifting them both, driving into the heart of her as her senses unravelled into heat and light and a pleasure that was on the verge of unbearable. And then the world stopped spinning on its axis and they ran out of words or the need to speak and were at peace.