She rested her hand high up on his thigh. “If a wife were to want to do it,” she whispered, “would a husband think very badly of her?”
His mouth was dry. The pause stretched long enough to make her eager expression falter.
“No,” he said. “He would buy her a castle.”
Her brows rose. “A castle.”
“Wherever she wanted.”
She came to her knees and bent over him, and the loose strands of her hair trailed over his sensitive parts. His fingers dug into the mattress.
She paused. “Lucian,” she said sweetly.
“Yes?” His cock was so heavy it ached.
Her gaze locked with his. “Why don’t you raise your arms above your head.”
He tensed. This was not his usual way; he very much preferred to do the doing. While he deliberated, she lowered her head, and the first silky-wet touch of her mouth sent a bolt of heat straight to his spine.
“All right.” He raised his arms above his head.
She licked, the way she had felt him do it to her.
He glanced at her, and the picture of her small hand wrapped around him incinerated his shaky attempt at restraint. “Take me in your mouth,” he said, his voice breaking. “Then suck, up and down. Use your hand, too.”
When she did, he moaned and saw stars. He hadn’t expected to feel this particular sensation again. He hadn’t expected to indulge in any of his inclinations again, and yet there she was, wanting him rough, and the next day, putting her mouth on him … And it was different. Not just because he surrendered, but because it was her mouth, her hands, her sighs. One by one, his muscles relaxed. His mind emptied. For the first time in his life, he gave all of himself up to tenderness.
A while later he lay flushed and panting in the sheets. He felt undone, rearranged, as if something solid inside him had broken open, as though a storm were howling over the exposed plain of his soul. It hurt.
Harriet was sitting back on her heels and surveyed him with the satisfied expression of a cat presiding over its latest kill. “As for the castle,” she said, “I should like a quaint, pretty one. Preferably in Tuscany.”
He nodded. He’d give her anything.
She laughed. “I jest.” She kept touching her fingertips to her lips, smiling as though she liked the feel of it. “I enjoyed it,” she said. “Truly, I did.”
“I wasn’t jesting,” he said. “Tuscany it is.”
Anything for her, if it kept her looking at him as though she loved him, too.
Or so he thought.
Chapter 30
Their drowsy morning was interrupted by the sound of a bell clanging hard and fast in the distance.
“It sounds like a fire bell …” Hattie murmured, and turned in Lucian’s arms. She faltered. Lucian’s whole body had gone still and his stare was vacant. He did not seem alive.
“Lucian—”
He was on his feet like a shot and grabbed his robe.
“What is it?” She detangled herself from the sheets and joined him at the window. He didn’t acknowledge her; his eyes were searching the horizon in the direction of the mine. “An accident,” he then said, his tone cold as a tomb.
Mhairi came into view below the window, running down the path toward Heather Row with her apron strings flying behind her. She was moving at the reckless, mindless speed of someone running for her life. Then Miss Clara was following her. And Mrs. Burns. All the while, the bell kept tolling.
Hattie felt nauseous. “We have to help,” she said, and pulled her chemise from the back of the armchair. It released Lucian from his numbness. His hand clamped around her arm hard enough to startle her. He released her at once, but his face was white as bone.
“Stay here,” he said.
“But—”
He shook his head. “Trust me.”
He began to dress, his movements quick and mechanical, as if he were an automaton.
She reached for her chemise. “I’m coming with you.”
His head snapped toward her. “Unless you want to see things that will haunt your nights, I advise you to stay here.”
She felt sick. She kept getting dressed. Lucian clenched his jaw. “Very well,” he bit out. “I cannot stop you. But forgive me—I’ll get one of the horses and ride ahead. If you must go all the way to the site of the accident, try and get one of the pony wagons.”
She was still wrestling herself into a walking dress when she heard the thunder of hooves, and a glance out the window confirmed that Lucian was galloping toward the village.