She turned to look down at him, feeling her brow crease with worry. “But why you?”
“Couldn’t say.” One shoulder lifted in a shrug as if it were just a matter of happenstance. As he continued, he skillfully threaded his fingers through her hair, massaging her scalp and the back of her nape. “That was the day Reed Sterling found me. Without hesitation, he brought me back to his gaming hell, fetched a physician and gave me a place to live. It was the first time I had honest employment, with a salary enough to buy a ramshackle row house of my own, along with enough left over to visit a brothel . . .”
She gasped and swatted him. “Is that truly all that matters to you?”
“You didn’t let me finish.” He laughed softly and shifted suddenly to capture her hands and playfully anchor them to either side of her head as he moved over her. “I was going to add that it also gave me the chance to meet a curious little bluestocking who turned my comfortable world on its head. I’ll never be the same again.”
She rolled her eyes.
“I mean it, Jane,” he said, his gaze unguarded now as he softly smoothed the curls away from her forehead, tracing her hairline in a simple, untutored caress. “In my whole life, I’ve never felt this content before. I never even imagined that someone like you existed in the world. You’re so smart and caring and pretty. Your lips move in this amazing way when you’re thinking. And sometimes you’re absentminded and far too curious for your own good. But there isn’t a single thing I’d ever change. My only wish is that I’d found you sooner.”
That was the moment when Jane understood that it was possible to love someone and to keep falling in love with them over and over again. Her heart turned in a joyful revolution beneath her breast.
The thick evidence of his renewed arousal was unmistakable and her body responded to this with a sweet clench.
She sighed, smiling when he kissed her again, softly, endlessly, threading their hands together. And a long while later, after he had her whimpering and unable to bear the emptiness inside her, he slowly eased into the damp, tender constriction once more.
Chapter 29
It was after dawn and Jane hurriedly tucked the combs in her hair as Raven fastened up the back of her gown. “Now I understand why my friend Winnie and her husband Asher have lingered so long on their honeymoon. It would have been so lovely to stay just as we were all day, perhaps even for weeks.”
He chuckled and kissed the back of her neck. “I’m not a machine. Though, I’d do my utmost to perform to your alarmingly high standards.”
“I didn’t mean . . .” She trailed off and blushed, looking at him over her shoulder. “Actually, I might have meant precisely that.”
Yet, even as she said the words, every subtle shift and movement afforded her the intimate knowledge that the inner workings of her body had altered. She was sore in places she’d only ever noticed in anatomical sketches. And a good, long soak in a hot bathing tub would certainly ease those aches. But there wasn’t time.
Their loveplay had lasted longer than she’d realized. They’d lingered over kisses and tender caresses that had joined more than merely their anatomy, but their very breaths and souls. Gazing into his eyes as her body had welcomed each deep, slow thrust, she’d felt as if every question her heart had asked throughout her life had finally been answered.
She knew she would never be the same. Never share such a deep understanding with someone as she did with him.
“I don’t want you to leave,” she said, sagging back against him, reluctant to acknowledge the distant clap of servants’ footsteps in the hall as the house awakened.
His arms stole around her waist on a possessive growl. “Tell your parents that you’re visiting your friend, then come to me. Wear the veil so no one knows and we’ll spend all day in bed. All week. Hell, all month.”
“I’m giving the children their examinations this morning. My other brothers will be arriving the day after tomorrow for holiday and—Oh!” She gasped and turned in his arms, her hands skimming over his broad chest and shoulders to the silken black locks at his nape with familiarity. “Tomorrow is the first of December . . . your birthday.”
He blinked. A bemused grin tipped up the corner of his mouth like one side of a weighing scale. “My birthday. I don’t think I’ve ever said those words aloud before. Orphans, as you might imagine, only think those types of things. Let those thoughts out and you open yourself up to all types of unfriendly hazings.”
“Then you’ve never celebrated, at all?” she asked, hiding the twinge of pain in her heart when he shook his head ruefully. “Well, that is going to change. The children and I are going to bake you a cake and have you over for tea.”
“Oh, goody, more lessons on how to lay a napkin on my lap,” he chuckled, but his gaze was soft as egret feathers as he held her and bent to press his lips to hers.
But before they kissed, a large crash sounded in the hall, shaking the floor at their feet.
Raven chuckled. “Toboggan races again?”
She turned toward the door as a chill skated down her spine. Something was wrong. “That wasn’t the twins. One of them would be cheering. And Phillipa would have dashed in here by now if it was Charles.”
And as she took a step, she recognized the discordant pained moan that echoed down the corridor. “Raven, I think Henry is hurt.”
* * *
Once they reached the hall, Raven saw Henry in a tangle of broken toboggan parts and a portion of the railing that had been severed in the middle of the staircase. The young composer was lying on his side, grimacing in pain and clutching his arm.
“Where can I find your family physician?” Raven asked before they reached him. Jane answered him in a strained whisper and he dashed away from Holly House to fetch their neighbor a quarter mile down the lane.
He returned with Doctor Lockwood within minutes, after having demanded an immediate audience with the master of the house. Apparently, used to such interruptions, Lockwood was not offended by Raven’s brusque mannerisms and came without delay.
When he returned to deliver the doctor, Jane had already fashioned a splint around Henry’s arm. On the outside, she appeared perfectly calm, reassuring not only her injured brother but each of her siblings that all things broken could be mended. She even asked if one of them could name the bones in the arm.
But in her eyes, Raven saw her fears and doubts, wondering if her brother would heal properly and be able to fulfill his dreams as a pianist and composer. And he saw her interminable love for her family. There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do for them.
The thought gave him pause.
He ached with the need to pull her into his arms, to hold and reassure her. But to do so would irreparably damage her reputation. He saw that now, clearer than ever. So, he clung to the shadows, ensuring that no servant looked his way and her parents didn’t see him as they rushed past.
His place wasn’t at her side. She needed someone who had a name. Someone who came from a solid, respectable family. But he still existed in the shadows of uncertainty, on the fringes between her world and his. And she seemed to know that, too.
I don’t expect to marry you . . . I haven’t even had time to consider how we would fit into each other’s lives.