Chapter Four
When Max reached inside the carriage stopped in front of the barracks to help Belinda to the ground, she hesitated to slip her hand into his. Only a heartbeat’s uncertainty, but in that moment, he knew she remembered their kiss from two days ago, and her regret ripped through him.
Then she put her gloved hand into his and descended gracefully to the cobblestones.
She’d arrived for her visit to the barracks, and not a moment too soon. He’d spent all of yesterday with her at the hospital, meeting the pensioners and watching as she read books to them, helped mend their clothing—even helped one dress himself, a man whose leg and foot had been badly damaged in an explosion. If anyone from the ton had seen a duchess do such a thing, they surely would have suffered apoplexy on the spot. But Belinda behaved as if she were privileged to help.
She’d made her point. The pensioners needed her, and they needed one another.
He only hoped that today she’d realize how much the army needed well-trained cadets.
“You look lovely,” he told her as he bowed over her hand, then placed it on his arm to lead her through the gate. He was acutely aware of every curious stare cast their way from the soldiers gathered in the yard.
“Please stop saying that,” she admonished with an exasperated sigh. “Your charms won’t work on me.”
He clenched his jaw. “I’m not saying it to—”
“And you cannot seduce me to your side either.”
That brought him up short. He halted, stopping her next to him. “Pardon?”
She fussed with her gloves, not daring to spare him a glance. “Your kiss.”
“My kiss?” As if she’d had nothing to do with it. As if he routinely staged elaborate picnics on beaches only to have his wicked way with unsuspecting ladies. “That kiss was not a seduction.” Not by a goodly ways, although for the life of him, he couldn’t have said why he’d done it. Except that he couldn’t resist. “And you were a willing participant.”
“That doesn’t mean that you should have done it.”
Oh, he was pretty certain that was exactly what it meant, and she knew it, too, which was proven by her careful dodge. But he didn’t want to risk a slap in front of the men and silently led her forward, toward the enlisted men’s mess hall.
“I spent a great deal of time yesterday thinking about it,” she continued. He was confident she had. He’d thought of little else himself, especially when they’d been together at the hospital. Close, but never alone so they couldn’t repeat the encounter. “It cannot happen again.”
“Absolutely not.”
She began to nod, as if satisfied with his answer—only to freeze as his comment sank through her.
Her bewildered gaze darted to him. She’d obviously been expecting a different answer, and her mind surely whirled at a million miles a minute to figure out his reply. If he had agreed with her or was refusing.
Finally, unable to bear the uncertainty any longer, she scowled and demanded, “And what, exactly, do you mean by that?”
He had no intention of answering. Especially when he didn’t know himself. Instead, he dodged, “I don’t have to charm you to win your support, and I certainly wouldn’t attempt to seduce you.” Although he’d lost count of the number of times over the years he’d imagined doing just that. He added bluntly, “You’re an intelligent woman who trusts in logic and reason, and I’d be a fool to try to use your heart against you. We both know how ineffective that would be.”
She hesitated with what he was certain was a cutting reply poised on the tip of her tongue. Then she softened as that unusual compliment sank in. “Then why did you kiss me?”
He purposefully avoided her question. “If that kiss was wrong, it wasn’t for the reason you think.”
“I think we already have enough problems between us,” she answered, getting in the last word as they reached the dining hall door. “We don’t need to add more, not ones like that.”
“Absolutely not.”
Her shoulders slumped in exasperation. “Maxwell—”
“Brigadier!”
The shout went up as soon as they entered. As more men took up the call, it echoed through the building and out across the barracks grounds that stretched along Church Street, just a stone’s throw across the park from the Pavilion. Infantrymen scrambled up from the benches lining the long tables to snap to attention, then were relieved when Max signaled for them to fall at ease. A comforting sense of familiarity rose inside him as he led her through the hall, a place he knew well, surrounded by men whom he’d trust with his life.
“Brigadier in the barracks!”
She tensed at his side, and her eyes widened as she glanced around the room. He fought back a twitch of his lips at her discomfiture, this woman who was usually so confident that she charged through the world without hesitation.
Briefly placing his hand over hers as it rested on his sleeve, he leaned down to quietly explain, “If it helps, you should know that they’re all more concerned about my presence here than yours.”
“Oh?”
“I can order them to serve guard duty. You can only order them to serve tea.”
The tension drained out of her, and a faint smile of irritation tugged at her lips. “Enjoying yourself, are you?”
“Of course.” He patted her hand with mock condescension. “For once, I outrank a duchess.”
When she opened her mouth to give him the set-down he deserved, he interrupted, “You’ve entered a different world, Belinda.” He gestured behind them at the dozen or so men who had returned to their seats at the table but were still craning their necks to stare curiously at them. “The army is a world unto itself, with its own laws and traditions, its own expectations and loyalties.” They reached the end of the mess hall, and he took her hand to help her sit on the wooden bench at the head of the long table. Standing behind her, he took her slender shoulders in his hands and leaned over to murmur into her ear, “Today, consider me your guide to that world.”
He removed his hat and tossed it to one of the nearby men, with unspoken orders to hang it from one of the pegs on the wall. The soldier stared at him in surprise. Officers rarely entered this mess hall and certainly few of high rank.
Then the soldier grinned as he hung the hat, apparently deciding that all the stories he’d heard about Max were true. That he’d rather spend his time with infantrymen than officers.
“Why do I need a guide?” she challenged. “I’ve spent a good amount of time around soldiers, you forget.”
“Around officers.” Instead of joining her at the table, he crossed to the little cast-iron stove in the corner, where a pot of coffee sat heating. He lifted the lid and peered inside. “You’ve probably never had a conversation with an enlisted soldier.”
“Many of the pensioners were enlisted men.”
“Retired, not actively serving.” He returned the lid and turned away, cursing himself for not thinking ahead to have a tray of tea ready for her. But then, hadn’t he wanted to show her the way the average soldier lived? Expensive china and tea had never graced the doorway of this dining hall.
“No difference.”
“A world of difference.” He signaled for the men to gather near. Good soldiers all, they joined them at the front of the room without a single grumble.
“Your Grace,” Max introduced with as much formality as if they were meeting in a Society drawing room, “these are the men of the Royal Fusiliers.”
“The 7th Regiment of Foot, sir,” one of the older soldiers interjected.
“Of course.” With a deferential nod, he smiled at the man’s pride over his regiment. The grizzled sergeant had reason for being proud. Every man in His Majesty’s army knew the heroism of the 7th Regiment of Foot and how much they’d sacrificed over the years. “Men, this is Her Grace, Duchess of Winchester.”
He held her gaze as the men stared at her in surprise. Most of them had never seen a duchess in person before, let alone been introduced to one, and were uncertain of the proper way to greet her. They shifted nervously, until the sergeant pulled at his forelock and nodded. “Your Grace.”
The others followed suit, and Belinda gave them a bright smile, as if she were being introduced to peers of the realm instead of coarse soldiers.
“I’m very pleased to meet you, gentlemen.” Her soft voice lilted through the dining hall and drew relaxed smiles from the men. Already she was winning them over, exactly as Max knew she would. “The 7th Regiment of Foot… My! That sounds like a very fine regiment.”
The men didn’t know if they were supposed to make replies to that, and an awkward silence followed until Max cleared his throat and said, “One of His Majesty’s bravest. They fought in America and the West Indies before taking on Napoleon on the Peninsula at Talavera and Bussaco.”
“Also at Albuera,” one of the older soldiers added proudly. “’Twas me first fight.”
“A bloody one, from what I’ve heard.” Max’s eyes never moved from Belinda.
“Aye,” the sergeant agreed somberly. “Gave it to ’em right good, we did!”
“And the sieges, don’t forget,” another soldier piped up. Although he was too young to have fought on the Peninsula, he openly showed his pride at being part of the storied regiment. “All three of ’em.”
Then the men all jumped into the conversation. “Salamanca, too—”
“And Vitoria—”
“Then we stuck it to Boney by chasing him right o’er the Pyrenees and back to France!”
“Stuck it to ’em good.”
“Right there on their own soil!”
“Toulouse.”
At that, the men all turned their gazes to the sergeant who had quietly spoken that last. Including Max.
The sergeant lowered his eyes to the floor, but not before a haunted expression darkened his face. He added solemnly, “Never forget Toulouse, boys.”
A grim silence fell over the room, broken only by the faint popping of coals in the stove and the muted noise of horses and wagons moving in the barracks yard outside.
Belinda glanced from man to man, attempting to understand what she’d missed, before her puzzled gaze landed on Max. “What happened at Toulouse?”
“Hell,” he answered quietly.
“All hell,” the sergeant corrected.
Her lips parted slightly as she pulled in a stunned breath. She gracefully rose to her feet and stepped toward the sergeant.
“You were there, weren’t you?” Not a question.
With a curt nod, he looked away. “Yes, ma’am.”
Silently, Belinda held out her hand. The sergeant hesitated, then took it in his. She leaned close, bringing her mouth to his ear.
Max had no idea what she whispered to the man, but the sergeant’s eyes glistened, and he nodded again. When she released his hand and stepped back, the old soldier blinked rapidly and turned completely away to hide the raw emotions on his face.
Instead of returning to her seat, Belinda went through the group of men, holding out her hand in greeting to each of them, asking their names, where each called home, and how long they had been part of the Royal Fusiliers. Each man beamed when she spoke to him, captivated by her interest in them and by her kindness.
“You’ve been with the Fusiliers for a long time,” Max interjected when she laughed at a joke that one of the oldest of the soldiers told her.
“Aye, sir.” The man straightened. Even though Max was here unofficially and doing his best to put the men at ease, none of them forgot his rank. “Over twenty years since I enlisted.”
Which would have been right at the start of the wars with the French. Seizing on this opportunity, Max asked, “What was your first engagement?”
His eyes took on a faraway look. “Copenhagen. Been in the army less than three months ’fore they shipped us off to Denmark.”
“How old were you?” Belinda asked.
“Just turned one and twenty, ma’am.”
Max fixed his eyes on Belinda to gauge her reaction. “Were you prepared for it?”
He snorted in disgust. “The trainin’ they gave us was little more than instructions on which end o’ the rifle to point at the enemy an’ t’ keep our heads down when the artillery goes to boomin’ off. And marchin’.” He scowled in distaste. “Hours o’ marchin’.”
Belinda asked innocently, “What’s wrong with marching? Order and discipline among the ranks are surely important in a battle.”
“Aye, ma’am.” His nod turned into a frustrated shake of his head. “Until th’ first shots are fired. Then it’s a scramble on the field, wi’ no one knowin’ what to do, where to charge, or when to fall back.”
“But isn’t that what the officers are there for? To give direction to the men?”
He spat on the floorboards. “Officers who themselves ain’t had more than a few weeks of trainin’ at best? An’ trainin’ not at all like what they’ll encounter i’ th’ fray, when bullets come a-whizzin’ at ’em.”
She folded her hands demurely in front of her. “I see.”
Max was certain she did. After all, this was why he’d brought her here, so she could understand how little training most soldiers were given before being rushed into battle, along with field officers who were just as inexperienced.
She confirmed her understanding of his scheme when she answered dryly, “I suppose not all officers can be as clever as Brigadier Thorpe.” Then she slid a sideways glance at him. “Occasionally, he makes quite good decisions under the pressure of battle.”
He fought to hide the amused twitch of his lips at her sly innuendo. She always had been one of the sharpest women he’d ever met.
“So soldiers need more training,” she announced. “Do you all agree?”
A round of ayes and emphatic nods went up from the men, and Max gave a silent sigh of relief. If Belinda was ever going to be swayed to support the academy, it would be the soldiers themselves who convinced her.
“What are your career plans, then?” she asked with a sincere smile.
The abrupt change in conversation didn’t surprise the men, but a warning prickled at the back of his neck. What was she up to?
One by one, the men all shared their plans with her, and to a man, they all wanted to serve out their army careers as part of the Fusiliers. Not one wanted to be pensioned before he’d given his all to crown and country. The pride Max felt in them warmed his chest and reminded him that he’d not been wrong to pick the military as his life’s path. Not when he could serve with men like these.
“And when you’re no longer able, what then?” Another question that seemed innocent to the men but which sliced into Max, because he knew where that quick mind of hers was headed. “Once you’re too old to charge into battle, or God forbid, should you be wounded? What would you do then, if you couldn’t be a soldier any longer?”
One of the younger men shrugged. He was so young, in fact, that freckles still dotted his nose. “Go home to our families, ma’am. Start over there with them.”
She pressed, “So you all have families to depend upon?”
Most nodded, except for three men who remained still. One of them was the old sergeant who had fought at Toulouse.
“And your family, Sergeant?”
“Got none, ma’am,” he answered quietly, as if a bit embarrassed to admit it. “The regiment is my family, till the day I’m pensioned.”
“What a great loss that day will bring to the Fusiliers,” she said sincerely. Then she turned toward Max. “Did you know, Brigadier, that in order to be a pensioner at one of the royal hospitals, a man cannot have any family?”
“Yes, Your Grace,” he answered with chagrin. “I did know that.”
“Hospitals that might otherwise keep a dedicated soldier who has given the best years of his life to crown and country from a life of starvation and suffering on the streets?”
He clenched his jaw. “Yes, ma’am.”
Satisfied that she’d made her point, she smiled warmly at the men. “Do not worry. You’ll all be given the respect and rewards you deserve, both now and when you retire.” Then she added with such conviction that it pulsed through him like an electric tingle, “I give you my word.”
Max quietly dismissed the men and took her arm to escort her out. Instead of cutting directly across the yard to the barracks gate and her waiting carriage, he guided her the long way around, along the brick wall that separated the barracks from the inn and houses fronting Marlborough Place.
When they were well out of earshot of the soldiers, she commented dryly, “I think I made my point about the hospital.”
She had. And yet… “And I mine about the academy.”
“Then it seems that we’re right back where we started.”
Not back where they’d started, but more firmly entrenched than before. Due in no small part because of their past. Even now, the tension flowed around them as palpably as the salty sea air and only increased with each step they took leading them away from the main part of the yard and past the service buildings framing the perimeter.
“The War Office wants the academy,” he reminded her as gently as possible. “I think it’s time you accepted that and turned your kindnesses toward helping the pensioners relocate.”
“Why can’t you see any other perspective but your own?” Aggravation colored her voice.
“I am trying to see your point. But you’re an outsider. You have no idea what the army needs to protect its men and—”
“Do not dare to try to put me in my place by telling me that I don’t know what army life is like. The War Office will be breaking their promise to those men.” He could feel her breath grow short as her frustration mounted, and not with the War Office but with him. “I know what it means to place your trust in someone, only to have it destroyed.”
He halted as the words slammed into him, grabbing her elbow and pulling her to a stop. “You are letting the past cloud your judgment.”
“Cloud my judgment?” With a bitter laugh of disbelief, she tried to yank her arm away, but he held tight, refusing to let her go. All of her pulsed with anger as she accused, “You used me!” She drew her hands into fists. “I loved you, and you used me just to advance your career.”
Fury flared inside him. Enough.
He pulled her into an open storage room and kicked the door closed behind them. In the dim light cast by a small window high up in the wall, his gaze bore down into hers as he stepped her back against the stone wall. No surrender, no quarter—
This fight was ten years in coming, and he’d be damned if he’d retreat now.
“I didn’t use you,” he bit out. Every ounce of his will fought for restraint against the anger and pain he’d kept locked inside him all these years. “And I sure as hell didn’t break my promise to you.”
“You told me you loved me, that you wanted to marry me—”
“I did want that.” Christ! He’d wanted that more than he’d wanted anything in his life, save for wanting the best possible life for her.
She pushed at his shoulders to make him step back, but he refused to budge. “You let me believe it just so my father would arrange for a better post for you. One that gave you a better chance at promotion. When you didn’t need me anymore, you abandoned me.”
“I never abandoned you.” Her accusations ripped fresh wounds into him.
“You refused to return to England when I needed you, and it nearly destroyed me.” Even in the dim light, pain shone in her eyes. “Why, Maxwell?” Ten years of confusion choked her as she forced out, “For God’s sake—why?”
That single word was the one question he’d never wanted to answer, preferring to take the truth to his grave. But he should have known that Belinda would make him walk through the fires of hell.
“I made a choice.” The right choice. He was as certain of that now as he’d been ten years ago. “I did what was best for you.”
“For me?” Disdain darkened her face. “The best thing for me would have been for you to return to England and marry me.”
The very worst thing. He bit back a curse that she refused to let this go. “You would have resented me.”
“Never. I loved you. I wanted to marry you and—”
“For God’s sake, Belinda! Don’t you understand?” Furious that she refused to let this go, he grabbed her shoulders and humiliatingly confessed, “I wasn’t good enough for you!”
She stared at him, shocked speechless.
“I wasn’t good enough for you,” he repeated, the guilt over hurting her so brutal that he shuddered with it. “I couldn’t give you the help you needed, but I could give you a better life. A life without me.”
He released her shoulders with a jerk and stepped away so that he couldn’t see any more of her pain. It would absolutely undo him.
“I loved you enough to let you hate me for it. That’s why I asked you to forget me.” The powerlessness he’d felt then rushed back over him now with full force. A cruel reminder of the man he’d once been, of how far he’d come since then. Without her. He forced out around the tightening knot in his throat, “And it killed me, Belinda. I had no money, no rank of consequence, mounting debts—” Now that he’d made his confession, the words poured out of him in a wave, carrying with them all the guilt and anguish he’d kept inside him since the night he wrote that letter beneath the monsoon’s rains. “You deserved better than being married to some junior officer stationed halfway around the world, with no prospects back in England and no other way to provide a living.”
“You’re a brigadier.” She touched a shaking hand to his arm. “We would have married and—”
He yanked his shoulder away, out of her reach, and wheeled on her. “I was nothing then!”
When a tear slipped down her cheek at his outburst, he raked his fingers through his hair to resist the urge to reach for her, to brush it away and stop the trembling of her lips with his own.
He sucked in a ragged breath to gain back his control. “It took years to be promoted—years in which you would have been forced to live in near poverty on whatever few pounds I was able to send home from my pay. You deserved so much more, and Winchester gave it to you.” Even now the thought of her in that man’s arms sparked fury and anger inside him. “I knew you’d hate me for what I did, and I was willing to pay that price. For you.”
“You had no right—no right—to make that decision for me!”
“I had every right,” he replied quietly, closing the distance between them. “Because I loved you.”
“Because you thought I wouldn’t be—”
“Because I loved you.” Another step.
She fiercely shook her head. “No! How could you have done—”
“Because I loved you,” he repeated firmly. That was the answer to all her protests. The only answer.
One more step, and she was in his arms, shaking violently and sobbing openly in both anger and anguish. Raw pain seeped from her, and he held her close, taking on her pain for himself.
“I loved you, Belinda,” he murmured into her hair, “with every ounce of my being.”
She shoved at him to push herself free of his embrace, but he tightened his arms around her. He was not letting her go. Not this time.
“I couldn’t help you.” He squeezed his eyes closed against the cost to his pride that this admission forced him to pay. He’d never felt less like a man than the moment ten years ago when he realized the truth of that. “In order to help you, I had to let you go.”
“But we loved each other!” A sob gripped her. “We could have… We could have…”
When words failed her, a great shudder pierced her. She finally understood the same truth that he’d realized all those years ago. That they could have done nothing.
She buried her face in his chest and cried, harder than he’d ever seen a woman cry in his life. Every sob was an agonizing slice into his heart.
Not letting her go, he lowered them both slowly onto a large grain sack resting on the floor and held her in his arms as she cried out all the torment fate had thrust upon them. She clung to him, and he’d never seen her more fragile than at that moment, when she cried as if she might break. He hadn’t been there to see the pain he’d caused her when she received his letter, but he was living it now. A brutal torment.
“Don’t cry, love,” he whispered, his lips at her temple. “No more tears, please.” God, he couldn’t bear it!
But he might as well have been begging the tide not to rise or the sun not to set. And truly, the only way forward was through the hellfire of the past. So he let her cry and provided whatever comfort he could. The only words were soft whispers to soothe her, the only movement the consoling caress of his hand against her back.
When her cries lessened into soft sobs, then finally subsided into nothing more than little gasps for air, he shifted her in his arms to rest her cheek against his shoulder and stroke her back. Eventually, her breath came gentle and even, but he didn’t release her. Neither did she shift away, remaining vulnerable in his arms.
Yet the difference in her now was palpable. Pain still lingered inside her; he could feel it with every delicate beat of her heart against his chest, pulsing inside him until he couldn’t tell where her heartbeat ended and his began. But it was no longer the harsh anguish she’d held inside her all these years or the confusion over why he’d abandoned her. Now there was at least understanding, if not yet acceptance.
He placed a soft kiss to her hair.
Then he whispered what had tormented him since that night in India. “I regret every day that I couldn’t be the man you needed, but I have never once regretted giving you the life you deserved.” He sucked in a deep breath to steel himself. “Was he a good husband to you?”
“Yes,” she breathed out, so softly that it was barely audible. But his heart heard, and the emotions that crashed over him were a mix of love and fierce protectiveness. Two emotions that he suspected she would always stir inside him. “He was kind and generous. He never spoke a word in anger, never threatened… denied me nothing. We were as happy as could be expected.”
The swift stab of jealousy tore through him, and he couldn’t find the power to speak. To tell her how glad he was for her. How thrilled he was that she’d lived the wonderful life he’d always wanted for her.
“But I never loved him,” she finished. As if compelled, she added, “Not the way I loved you.”
That soft confession revealed fully to him all he’d lost by letting her go, and instant mourning for that life nearly brought him to his knees. But he needed to ask the question whose answer he feared most—“Do you hate me?”
Her heartbeat’s hesitation nearly broke him.
Then she gave a soft shake of her head against his shoulder. “How can I hate you when you loved me so much?”
His eyes stung, and he squeezed them shut. Her voice lacked conviction, but she’d said the words, and he’d desperately needed to hear them. Hope stirred inside his hollow chest that he’d be able to eventually persuade her to forgive him. No matter how long it took.
“Maxwell.” His name was a plea for compassion, an entreaty to give her guidance as to what to believe about him.
He cupped her face in his palm and rasped out, “I never stopped loving you, Belinda, even after you forgot about me. You need to know that.”
Her hands twisted his uniform in her fists, and her heart pounded against his chest as she pressed into him. “I never forgot you, you damnable fool,” she chastised in a gentle whisper. “Not one day.”
Both seeking absolution and giving solace, he touched his lips to hers.
She inhaled sharply at the tender contact but didn’t pull back. Instead, she softly returned the kiss, her trembling lips moving tentatively beneath his.
In that kiss he tasted the forgiveness he sought. More, that kiss held a second chance at the future they’d been denied, with Belinda back in his arms. Where she’d always belonged.
* * *
“Give me a second chance,” he whispered entreatingly against her lips.
A second chance? Belinda pulled away and stared at him. His quiet declaration simply stunned her.
Taking her surprised reaction as an invitation, he reached up to trace his thumb over her chin and back along her jaw. That small touch of affection sped through her, blazing a trail of warmth and need in its wake.
“Seeing you again and holding you in my arms makes me realize how much I still want a life with you. The one we’d planned.” His deep murmur seeped into her, filling her with the happiness she remembered. “Say that you’ll forgive me and give me that chance.”
She pressed her fist to her chest to physically calm her racing heart. A second chance with Maxwell… All of her yearned to have just that—the life with him that they’d been denied. She was still drawn to him as strongly as ever. Perhaps even more now that she knew the truth about why he’d broken off with her, now that she knew how much he’d loved her. At that moment, with Maxwell holding her in his arms, she could almost believe the past ten years and all the grief had never happened. As if anything could be possible again.
And yet…
“If you’re saying all this only to gain my support for the academy, it won’t work,” she warned, putting voice to her worst fears that all this was only a lie. That the second chance he wanted was simply another opportunity to break her heart.
“Then how about to gain your love?”
Did he really mean… love? She was too stunned to answer as he brought his lips to hers again and kissed away her surprise.
Despite her reservations, she sighed as his mouth moved gently against hers. At first, the kiss was tender and hesitant, then growing more bold with each passing heartbeat in which she didn’t stop him from claiming more. How could she, when this was exactly what she’d always wanted, what she’d longed for years to experience just once more? His lips on hers, the masculine taste of his kiss, his strong arms slipping around her to draw her against him…
She surrendered with a whisper. “Maxwell.”
All those kisses he’d given her in the past had been nothing like this. For heaven’s sake, she could taste the difference in him. The maturity that the years had brought to him, the tempering of experience, even an underlying patience that certainly hadn’t been there before—it all worked together to sweep her away, until there was only the strength of him beneath her fingertips as she splayed her hands over his shoulders, only his presence filling her senses until she shivered.
When she melted against him, boneless in his arms, a groan sounded from the back of his throat, and his tongue plunged between her lips to capture all of her kiss. She reveled in his need for her and enjoyed her own answering passion. A passion that now had her stroking her tongue over the length of his and encouraging him to claim even more.
“Belinda,” he rasped out. Awe laced through his voice, as if he couldn’t quite believe that she was real.
“Yes,” she whispered. I’m real. I’m here with you. The way I always wanted to be.
He kissed down her neck to her collarbone. He tongued the pulse pounding wildly in the little hollow at the base of her throat before trailing his mouth lower to the scooped neckline of her dress.
Belinda wrapped her arms around his shoulders and clung to him, rolling back her head with sheer delight.
“Dear God, how good you feel.” He nuzzled his face against her shoulder. “I’d forgotten how soft you are, how tempting… how much I missed you.”
As if to prove his words, his hands caressed up her body to her breasts to strum his thumbs against her hardening nipples through the dress. He’d touched her like this before when they’d been courting, but his hands hadn’t been as expert then. His attentions had never been on her as intently as they were now to gauge every reaction he drew from her, no matter how small.
Belinda shamelessly arched herself against him, wishing her clothes weren’t between them. Wishing her body was bare to his eyes, his hands, his mouth… wishing he was working to quench the burning ache throbbing between her thighs now instead of so devilishly stoking it with each touch and kiss. She was a widow and knew what intimate pleasures a man could bring to a woman. But only Maxwell could make her heart ache just as fiercely with love as he made her body burn with desire.
“I—I missed you, too,” she forced out the admission between increasingly harder breaths that were quickly becoming pants.
Lifting her onto his lap, he buried his face against her cleavage with chuckle. “Only missed, hmm?”
He licked into the valley between her breasts in a brazen allusion to what he would do if he could strip her dress off her right there in the supply room. If he could lie her back on the flour bags and feast on her as if she were one of the exotic dishes he’d presented to her at the picnic. She couldn’t fight off a soft moan as that deliciously wicked image filled her mind. For one desperate moment, she wanted him to do exactly that.
Then he audaciously tugged down her neckline, and she gasped. The tight stays and chemise beneath made it impossible for him to set free her entire breast, but her nipple was visible to his hungry eyes, then to his greedy lips as he captured it in his mouth and suckled her.
“Perhaps—” She forced out the admission chokingly between alternating gasps of surprise and whimpers of need as he tortured her with sucks, licks, and soft bites. “Perhaps it was… a bit more… than simply missing.”
He smiled against her flesh, and the devilish expression curled liquid flame through her, so hot that her thighs clenched. She watched without a trace of shame as his mouth worshipped at her breast, as he rolled her nipple between his teeth and then placed a delicate kiss to the sensitive point.
“Good,” he purred as his mouth captured hers in a languid yet sultry kiss that held the promise of all the wanton things he wanted to do to her. “Because I sure as hell longed for you.” His words were an enticing torment. “So many sleepless nights when you were all I could think about, when I wanted nothing more in the world than to spend just one night making love to you.”
She closed her eyes against the pleasure he gave her and against the soft confession poised on the tip of her tongue that she’d wanted the same.
“Give me a second chance.” He nipped at her neck in an erotic cajoling that pulled straight through her, down to the ache building between her thighs. “Let me prove to you the man I’ve become.”
“Yes,” she whispered breathlessly.
A deep sigh swept through him as his shoulders sagged and his forehead rested against hers. He placed another tender kiss to her lips. Then he pulled away, climbing quickly to his feet.
She fluttered her eyes open, confused. A surge of cold loss passed through her with a shudder. He was… leaving? After giving her the most thrilling kisses of her life?
As if reading her mind, he leaned over to touch his lips to hers. Then he murmured in a husky voice that was more promise than explanation, “If we don’t leave now, I’ll have no choice but to make love to you right here.”
His audacity sparked a low heat inside her, and she nearly begged him to do just that.
“You’ll not have to worry about dinner with Pomperly then if anyone should happen along and find us.” His lips quirked into a lazy grin. “The scandal of it would drum me right out of the army and keep you from ever being invited to a royal affair again.”
A bubble of laughter spilled from her, and she didn’t fight his help in rising to her feet, straightening her dress, and leading her from the supply room. Or how he wrapped her arm around his to escort her back toward the gate, walking so closely to her that he could whisper in her ear simply by lowering his head… whispers of love and desire that stirred such happiness and longing through her that her insides melted.
Everything had changed between them.
Again.