Lord Perfect (The Dressmakers 3)

“You are too good a listener,” he began. Then he paused to look at her. Her elbow rested on the arm of her chair, and her cheek upon her hand. Her eyes were closed. Her breathing was even.

He smiled ruefully. He had planned to put her to sleep. But not this way.

He rose and went to her. Gently he gathered her up in his arms. He carried her to bed and laid her down. He took off her shoes, and drew the bedclothes over her. She scarcely stirred.

She was tired to death, poor girl, he thought. Tired to death with watching and waiting and worrying, about everything and everyone, including him, especially him.

He bent and kissed her forehead. “Don’t fret about me, sweet,” he murmured. “I’ll do well enough. I always have.”

IT WAS THE quiet that must have wakened her, the end of the steady drumbeat of rain. Or perhaps it was the light. It was not daylight, that silvery glow. The sky had cleared, and she lay in a pool of moonlight.

Bathsheba put her hand out, and even as she did so, she knew he wasn’t there. The warmth was missing. She shivered, though not from cold. She had not felt so alone since those first bleak months after Jack died.

“Drat you, Jack,” she whispered. “You had better not be laughing. A fine joke, you’ll think it, that I should make the same mistake twice.”

She heard a sound in the room beyond. She sat up.

Stealthy footsteps.

“Who is that?” she said.

“Roaming bands of soldiers,” came a familiar rumble. “Brigands and cutthroats. Ghouls and goblins.”

Rathbourne’s tall, dark form filled the doorway. “Or perhaps it was simply me, galumphing about while fondly imagining I was stealing noiselessly about the place.”

“Were you walking in your sleep?” she said.

“I thought I was walking in my—er—awake,” he said.

“You told me not to fret,” she said. “Were you fretting, Rathbourne?”

“I was not pacing, if that is what you are implying,” he said. “I never pace. Caged animals pace. Gentlemen stand or sit quietly.”

“You could not sleep,” she said.

“I was trying to work out a plan for dealing with Peregrine—or his parents, actually,” he said.

He folded his arms and leant against the doorjamb. It was so like his pose at the Egyptian Hall, when she’d first seen him, that her breath caught, as it had done then.

“I’d forgotten,” she said. “The business about the peddler’s daughter won’t work now, obviously.”

“I am considering making a scene,” he said. “Turning the tables on them. Before they can commence their histrionics, I shall start striding back and forth, waving my fist and clutching my forehead by turns.”

“You are fond of that boy,” she said.

“Well, yes, of course. Why else should I put up with him?”

He ought to have children, she thought. He would make a good father.

She could not give him children. He didn’t need an aging mistress with a malfunctioning womb. He needed a young wife who’d fill his nursery.

“If you like, I’ll help you devise a scene tomorrow,” she said, “while we watch for our wanderers.”

“It is tomorrow, actually,” he said. “Last time I looked at my pocket watch, it was one o’clock, and that was a while ago.”

“Then it is past time you came to bed,” she said.

“I see,” he said. “Is that what woke you? A desperate longing for me?”

“I should hardly call it a desperate longing,” she said. “I should call it a vague sense of something amiss.”

“The fire’s out and the bed’s cold,” he said.

“Why, so they are,” she said. “That’s what it is. Well, you are big and warm. That should solve the problem.”

He laughed.

Oh, she would miss that low laughter.

“Rathbourne,” she said. “We haven’t much time, and you’re wasting it.”

HE CAME INTO the room, pulling off articles of clothing with every step. In a few minutes, he was naked, miles of hard, muscled male glowing in the moonlight.

In the next minute, he was pulling back the bedclothes, and stripping her with the same ruthless efficiency.

She thought it would be quick and desperate, one last bout of madness.

But when she was naked, he lay on his side next to her and brought her round to face him. He lifted his hands to her head, and drew them down, over her face, then down her throat and down, slowly, over her breasts and waist and belly and lightly between her legs. He moved his long, gentle hands down her legs, then all the long way up again, as though he would memorize her.

Her eyes filled as her own hands went up to tangle in his hair, then to trace the shape of his face—the noble nose, the strong angle of his jaw—and powerful neck and shoulders. Then down she brought her hands, over the hard contours of his torso, so familiar now, and over his taut waist and belly, the narrow hips, and his manhood. She smiled, remembering their drunken night, and he remembered, too, because she saw it in his answering smile. She continued her journey, as far as she could reach down those miles of leg, and up again, her heart aching.

I love you I love you I love you.

He drew her close and kissed her, and it was cool and sweet, then hot and sweet, then dark and wild. She tangled her legs with his and pressed closer, and forgot about tomorrows. She let her hands rove over him again and again, as though she could imprint him somehow, though it was impossible: taste and scent and touch and sound—all so fleeting. This moment. That was all one ever had: this moment.

She took all she could, drank him in and memorized him, in endless, deep kisses and tender caresses, until at last he made a choked sound, and pushed her onto her back.

He entered her in one fierce thrust, and the world shattered. She rose up and wrapped her legs round his waist, her arms round his shoulders, to hold on to him, as tightly as she could for as long as she could. He grasped the back of her head, and kissed her, and she clung, rocking with him, while the heat built and blotted out thought, and while grief, and tomorrow—above all, tomorrow—all vanished.

Only the joy of being joined remained, and they let that happiness sweep them to its pinnacle, and over. Mercifully, it swept them into sleep, in each other’s arms, in the silver glow of the moonlight.

NO ONE KNOCKED at the door of the New Lodge until morning. Then it was only Peter DeLucey, accompanied by a servant carrying a basket from the kitchens.

It was early morning, though, forcing Benedict and Bathsheba to make a hasty toilette. They had no time even for a few private words.

Still, at least DeLucey had not arrived while they were still abed together. Thomas—who had been awake at dawn, as usual—had spotted Northwick’s son while the young man was yet a good distance away, and promptly alerted his master.

Not that it was any use trying to protect Bathsheba’s reputation, Benedict knew.

After all, Northwick had allotted them his love nest, had he not? Neither he nor anyone else who saw them together would have the smallest doubt that Bathsheba Wingate was Lord Rathbourne’s mistress.

Still, Northwick had acted generously and honorably.

When Lord Mandeville found out, Northwick would pay for his generosity and honorable behavior.

That was the trouble with doing what was right. One was sure to suffer for it.

A gentleman does what is right, and accepts the consequences.

Bloody damn rules, Benedict thought.

“I do apologize, my lord,” Peter DeLucey said.

Benedict gazed blankly at him for a moment, wondering how much of the conversation he’d missed. “I fail to see why you should apologize,” he said. “I’m the one who wasn’t paying attention.”

“Lord Rathbourne was thinking,” said Bathsheba. “That soul-freezing look was not aimed at you, Mr. DeLucey. You merely happened to be in the way. Take something to eat, Rathbourne. One can’t concentrate properly

on an empty stomach. Thomas, his lordship needs more coffee.”

Everyone followed the lady’s orders.