Keeping Faith (Fair Cyprians of London 3)

If was as if her body were caving in on itself suddenly. It had happened so gradually, but now the impact was swift. She didn’t know if she had the strength to ever move again. She was going to drown all over again but on the inside.

Perhaps she gave a soft moan for Mr Westaway looked up suddenly, and as his eyes locked with hers, it was as if he were only seeing her, the person, for the first time in all his frenzied painting, for he dropped his brush and strode forward, crouching by the side of the bath.

“Miss Montague?” He didn’t wait for her to acknowledge him. Perhaps he saw that she was incapable. Certainly, the speed with which he rose and whisked her out of the bath and against him belonged to a man motivated by urgency.

She was shivering so hard now she couldn’t speak. Her teeth chattered, and her body convulsed.

“Dear God, what have I done to you?” Seizing a towel, he wrapped her in it, squeezing the water out of her skirts so that it puddled on the floor and down his trouser legs. He paused, cradling her against him. She had her eyes shut, so she didn’t see what expressions crossed his face, but the next moment, he’d hoisted her into his arms and was striding out of the bathroom and along the corridor to the servants’ stairs, his footsteps echoing on the bare boards. This was not a part of the house frequented by the likes of Mr Westaway, yet it appeared they met no one. Not that Faith cared too much.

She was going to die of cold. Her bones ached to the very marrow, and her head ached. How had it happened so fast? Why had she let it happen? Her thoughts had wandered so very far away. Away to what freedom might feel like if she ever got out of the prison of her making. Of Mrs Gedge’s making.

She felt his hand on her as he lay her on something that yielded slightly. A bed.

The ceiling was dark and unfamiliar. Not her room. Not a room a gentleman would inhabit, she realised vaguely. The servants’ attics or a musty room somewhere else.

“It was the closest.” She felt his warm breath against her forehead.

The bathroom was tacked onto a little-used part of the house; she knew that. Knew also that he was not going to strip her naked and have his way with her when she was vulnerable. Yes, cold she might be, but she was not insensible. A girl who traded on her wits and who didn’t intend landing in the gutter couldn’t afford not to have a semblance of consciousness of what was going on around her.

But she was so cold. The spasm that tore through her and his hesitancy following the light hand on her chest, not her breasts for he was a gentleman and would remain one, she was certain of that, banished his diffidence.

He began to work the row of tiny buttons at the front of her gown quickly, stripping her dress over her shoulders and down to her waist while she wriggled to help him. For the gown was like an icy mantle, and she was desperate to get warm. Desperate to feel warmth against her frozen skin.

His warmth.

Reaching out, she closed her hands about his wrists, and he stopped.

“Make me warm.” Her hands found his thighs, the rough fabric of his trousers. Wet. Like the rest of him as he’d held her, dripping against him.

It was only reasonable he get warm and dry too. She didn’t say it, but her seeking hands and the expression she levelled at him made her thoughts clear.

She reached out her arms for him, and one glance at her face was enough, for then he was tearing at his necktie, unbuttoning his jacket and waistcoat, stripping off his trousers.

All with the urgency and attention to what came next that she required.

The thought of skin to skin contact was like a burning obsession, although only conceived of in the minutes she’d spent conjuring them up while lying on the bed.

Before, it had been a necessary precursor to her freedom.

Now it was a raging want, and as he lowered himself into her arms and his hard, naked chest pressed against her breasts, she thought she would die of desire.

Warmth sizzled between them, his heated skin instantly communicating to her everything she needed, whipping up sensations she had no idea were possible in her carefully controlled human sphere.

“Hold me,” she whispered, wrapping her arms and legs about him and pulling him tight. “Please.”

He was as naked as she, and the searing contact lit a fire within her belly.

Desire? Is this what it felt like? She, who’d imagined she was immune was now as desperate as any common doxy to fuel the fires of the man in her embrace for her own ends. She wanted love; she wanted passion; she wanted human connection.

Sliding beneath the covers, they curled into each other, his warmth heating her all over, his erection pressing into her belly; strengthening her from within. Powerful. She felt it of her own accord and because of his worship, for that’s what if felt like—as if he were imbuing her with a strength she could only experience through honouring this connection between them.

His lips were on hers, lighting her up from inside, thrilling her with sensations she’d not thought possible.

She rolled on top of him, straddling him as she cupped his face, kissing him back with passion. What did it matter that the motion came naturally, observed during her time at Madame Chambon’s though never acted upon until now. It gave her power and negated any gentlemanly requirement to question her desire to proceed.

She could no more have halted the escalation of raging need to take this to its culmination than tell him she never wanted to see him again.

For she wanted to see him…be with him…now…forever.