To ask if they thought she really was mad.
She tensed at the sound of light rapping upon the front door.
Surely Teddy would not seek her out at midnight?
Grace was asleep, and when she found the courage to open the door, relief had the blood fizzing through her veins, thrumming in her ears, and her breath coursing through her lungs, fast and shallow.
“Hamish! You came!”
“How could I not? After tonight?”
So, it wasn’t only she who felt the connection between them?
“Come in.” She stepped aside, the eagerness in her voice and her discomposure making no secret of her pleasure at seeing him. And her hope.
“Grace is asleep, and I’m very glad to receive you,” she whispered, leading him up the passage and pausing by the drawing room when she so longed to take him further. Up the stairs to her bedchamber.
He must have understood, and, with no words needed, she put her hands on his shoulders to steady herself against him as his lips came down upon hers.
Pressed between the wall and his chest, she could feel the hammering of his heart. Hers seemed almost ready to leap out of her chest cavity as his arms went about her, skimming her waist, contouring her breasts.
“Shall we go somewhere more comfortable?” she managed between kisses, cupping his face as he continued to kiss her, not breaking the contact as they clumsily negotiated the stairs to the next level; arms entwined, with only one thing on their minds. He clearly needed no prompting.
This man was as enamoured of Lily as she was of him.
And, when finally skirt, basque, and breeches fastenings had been dealt with, they clung to each other on the bed, Lily in her linen chemise, and her lover in only his shirt.
With naked limbs entwined, and mouths fused, words were not needed as they continued to fulfil what both had desired the moment each had laid eyes upon the other.
The intensity of suppressed desire came together in a perfect storm of loving. Lily opened herself up with a willing heart, body, and mind to the man who offered her everything she needed at this moment.
It was an act that went so far beyond mere physicality. The aching void of her soul was filled by the act of exquisite plunder. Their need for one another was like a living thing; rapidly escalating heights of sensation, scaled with unfettered abandon and mutual, almost painfully exquisite rapture.
“I love you, Lily,” he ground out as together they crested the wave of mutual pleasure and an abundance of joy, finding outlet in a fury of passionate kisses and tangled limbs.
When the fury of their lovemaking subsided, replaced by a deeply satisfied quiet, overlaid by their soft, rapid breathing, they lay side by side, staring up into the darkness.
Hamish reached
for her hand, raising it to his mouth as he languorously kissed each finger.
“That was incredible,” he whispered.
“I’ve wanted you from the moment I met you,” she whispered back, the sting of tears like a catharsis for the years she’d not known him. When she’d found the courage, she asked, “Why did you come here this evening?”
“Because I realised I was wrong to let you go as I did the other night. Because I realised that I need you in my life.”
“Even though you know loving me will not make your life easy?”
He tapped his heart. “I can’t fight what’s here.”
She inched her body closer, in the inky blackness more than ever aware of the sensation of touch: the heated moistness of his skin against hers, and the curdling in her belly that longing and hope combined to create.
Could there be more to tonight than simply the physical union? She was not the virtuous embodiment of womanhood esteemed, but he knew that.
“There is so much that is a mystery about you, Lily,” he murmured, gently placing the palm of her hand upon his heart. “But I do know that I can’t live without you.”
Chapter 25