Chapter 20
With her head bent over a patch of earth and the sun beating down upon her neck, Elsie could almost believe she was back at Bladon.
Bladon, which seemed a world away, that remote, tucked-away place on the corner of existence. She’d not truly noted how lonely it was until these past weeks here in London. For in Bladon, there was no one to speak with about her craft and obscure bits of history she’d never before known. No one to laugh with. Or dine with.
She paused, her gaze fixed on a fat earthworm winding its way through a moist patch of black earth.
There was no… him.
“You’ve finished,” William murmured from just over her shoulder, forcing her mind away from the melancholy musing.
After more than a fortnight living in William’s household and daily work carried out in the gardens, she’d converted this space into something no longer strangled by too much life. It was perfectly ordered for when she soon left. A pang struck in her chest. “I have,” she said as she assessed the grounds. Neatly trimmed boxwoods, the orderly beds, the tamed rosebushes—she rested her gaze upon the one wildly grown tree—well, with the exception of one.
Together, her gaze and William’s went to that bush.
And a sentiment increasingly familiar and wicked and all things wrong wound through her—envy for the woman who’d had a precious gift with and in William that Elsie would never know.
To give her fingers something to do, she toyed with the strands of her bonnet, and stared wistfully out. “Though it is not ever truly done, you know.” She forced the response out. “Caring for the gardens, that is,” she clarified when she finally looked at him.
He was seated on a rusted white wrought-iron bench. The bucolic tableau had come to represent their time together: he at work with a stack of leather ledgers on the bench beside him, while she tended his gardens. “Weeds always return. Leaves always grow. You’ll need to have someone attend them when I’m…” Gone.
He stiffened.
And she braced for him to condemn these grounds as he had more than two weeks ago. But the display did not come.
Not wanting to shatter the moment, she patted the ground beside her. “I’d show you something.” Before I go. Another blasted pang struck, and she fought it back, not wanting to shatter the peace that had sprung between them.
Without hesitation, he abandoned his books and joined her on the mud-stained blanket she’d spread out, kneeling upon it when any other lord would have recoiled at the idea of lowering himself to the damp earth.
Doffing her bonnet, Elsie sat back on her haunches and tossed it aside, so she had an unfettered view of the plants before her. She reached down and clipped a yellow bloom free. Elsie gathered William’s hand and placed the flower in his grip.
He eyed it. “What is this?”
“What do you think it is?” she returned.
“I’m a novice to the work you do out here, but I know enough to say it is a flower.” His lips twitched, and where there’d once been a sneer, now there was only a smile. One that wrought a dangerous havoc upon her heart.
“That is precisely what it is,” she said, her voice faintly breathless. “It has a fragrant scent.” She guided it up to his nose, and the slight aromatic smell wafted between them. Did she imagine that his hand trembled? “And satiny-soft pedals.” He caressed the pad of his thumb experimentally over one of them. “On the surface, that is all most will see.” Elsie collected the stalk from him and laid the yellow bloom upon her palm. With four fingers, she crushed the petals and compressed them against her hand for several moments. She felt William’s eyes taking in her every movement. “And if that is all one sees, one will miss all the wonders it is capable of.” When she lifted her fingers, a distinct pine-sage odor danced around the air. Elsie applied the watery ointment upon his jaw, coating a portion of his right cheek.
“What are you—?”
“It is called arnica. I’ve read records that indicate it’s been used as far back as the 1500s,” she explained, crushing another handful of pedals so that this time her fingers were slicked with the natural ointment. “It soothes aches,” she explained as she applied it to his opposite cheek. “Reduces swelling. Heals wounds.”
“And you’ve used it before… with such results?” Heavy skepticism hung in his tone, along with something else—hope… and awe.
“I’ve used it countless times with such outcomes,” she confirmed. “Has your jaw ached with the same intensity this past week?”
She knew the answer before he even shook his head.
Elsie winked.
His eyebrows shot up, and he looked between the bloom in her hand and then back to her face. “Why… why… this is what you’ve applied to my jaw each morn?”
Dropping the crumpled remnants of the flower, she let them fall beside her. “Ointments are invariably looked upon more favorably when they come in proper containers.”
William stared wistfully at the vibrant plant. “And all along it has been here.”
“Oh, yes. Along with basil”—she pointed across the gardens—“and cloves.” Elsie leaned closer. “Cloves, William,” she added excitedly. “They’ve the ability to numb your gums, which would have aided with your recovery. It can still help you,” she rushed to assure him. “Nature is surrounded by gifts that have the ability to help us. But we have to be respectful of those gifts, honoring them.” And she’d left his late wife’s gardens in a state where they’d been restored to their former glory, and he’d… Elsie glanced up. A soft smile played about William’s lips. Heat washed over her face. “You’re laughing at me.” She stood and stepped around him.
“Never.” He leaped up with an agility he’d not shown weeks earlier and moved into her path. His gaze moved over her face, warmer than the sun, like a physical caress. “How could I take you… or any part of this”—he motioned to the gardens—“as silly?”
“Because everyone, except my father, invariably does,” she said guardedly.
“We’ve already established they were fools,” he reminded.
Her heart swelled.
“You have no idea,” he breathed, continuing forward until they were but three steps apart.
Her eyes fixed on his, riveted. “What?” she whispered.
William brushed his palm down her cheek in a fleeting caress that brought her eyes briefly closed. “How very special you are, Elsie Allenby.”
Special.
In the whole of her life, she’d been called odd, peculiar, strange. In some cases, villagers had whispered the word witch as she’d passed. Never had anyone spoken with a reverent awe about her or what she did, wholly trusting her work. Not even the patients she’d tended for the Brethren had been willing to accept her treatments unless her father had been present. Warmth stole through her.
As he slid his gaze over her face, lingering upon her like a touch, his Adam’s apple jumped.
The air crackled between them.
“What is it?” she asked softly.
“I want to kiss you,” he said, an aching quality to that admission.
He wanted to kiss her. Since their embrace more than a week ago, he’d revealed no hint of desire for her. She wetted her lips, and an agonized groan filtered from him and filled the air between them. “Y-you did,” she reminded him. Nine days, ten hours, and some handful of minutes ago. The single most erotic, passionate moment of her life.
“Again,” he said hoarsely. “I want to kiss you again.”
And yet, he did not. It was a contradiction of passion and restraint that made no sense in the scheme that was desire.
“That was different,” he explained, his response moving with a synchronic harmony to her unvoiced thoughts.
“In what way?” she asked and then cringed. How very easy that question could be confused for an entreaty.
Because isn’t it? Isn’t his embrace what you want?
“I was horrid before, and I’m… trying now because I wasn’t always dishonorable.” With a sound of disgust, William began to pace. “I was a gentleman once, you know.” He stalked an angry rhythm back and forth, and as he spoke, Elsie made herself go as still and silent as possible, afraid to move lest he stop the healing diatribe he so desperately needed. “I was polite to ladies and staff, and I was certainly never the lord who drank too much.” He dragged a hand through the tangle of his unfashionably long black tresses. “And I was certainly never one to kiss a woman on my staff.”
Me. He is speaking of me.
A servant in his employ and nothing more.
Why did that leave her so forlorn inside?
He stopped abruptly so that he faced her.
Elsie schooled her features lest he spy the inexplicable misery that his statement had stirred.
“After all, you are here at my…” He flashed a strained grin. “Behest.”
A laugh exploded from her, and she caught it behind her hand.
“Minx,” he muttered, looping a hand around her waist and tugging her close in a gesture that was so very natural that they both stilled. All laughter died between them. William closed his eyes. “Tell me to release you.”
“But what if I don’t want you to?” she whispered. If she were a proper lady, she would never admit to that wickedness. But she was no lady. She was a woman born to an altogether different station, one who yearned for another taste of this man’s kiss. “What if I tell you I want to kiss you as much as you want to kiss me?”
Passion glinted in his eyes. Passion, along with something else contrary to that emotion—regret. “I can’t offer you more.”
He could not or would not? There was a fine distinction, with the same end result—them parting. And then she did something that she never did. She lied. “I don’t want more than this, William.”
“Elsie.” Her name was a prayer and a benediction all at once. With a groan, he slammed his mouth over hers, and this kiss was different from the one they’d shared before. Heat, white-hot, warmer than the sun that now beat down upon them, set her ablaze.
Elsie climbed her hands about his neck and, going up on tiptoes, leaned into him and all that he offered.
He slanted his lips over hers, and then she parted her mouth, allowing him entry. William swept his tongue inside, and they tangled in a beautiful dance, both primitive and tender all at once.
“Elsie,” he groaned against her lips, the reverberation of her name tickling and pulling a breathy laugh from her. He swallowed that sound, claiming it as his own.
Cupping her under the buttocks, William drew her to the vee between his legs.
His length throbbed against her belly, and she pressed herself closer to the feel of him.
A sharp ache settled at her core.
Guiding her back down upon the blanket, William never broke contact with her lips. He continued to slant his lips over hers, and then he shifted his mouth.
She cried out in an incoherent protest, tangling her fingers in his hair to claim more of that kiss, but William continued his search, trailing his lips down her cheek. Every swath of flesh he caressed with them burned and sent that heat spiraling further within her.
“You have bewitched me, Elsie,” he rasped against her ear. He flicked his tongue out, teasing her lobe and then suckling that flesh.
“I have been c-called a witch before,” she said between frantic little spurts of indrawn breaths.
“Damned villagers?” he muttered, moving his exploration lower until he found the place where her pulse frantically beat with her hungering for him.
Elsie bit her lower lip to stifle a moan, and her head tipped reflexively, affording him open access to that skin. “Th-the very same. S-some of my father’s patients, t-too.” Her speech dissolved into a partial whimper, partial plea.
He reached a hand between them and, through the thin fabric of her wool day dress, palmed her breasts, bringing them together, and she cried out softly. “Siren, then. Enchantress.”
Her lashes fluttered, and she dropped her head back, allowing him access to her. “A-an enchantress is really much the same as a w-witch, you know.”
William’s mouth again found hers for a hard kiss. “Goddess, then.”
As he continued to tease her through the gown, the restlessness built at her core, a throbbing ache that grew with his every caress.
The fabric of her dress, a thin barrier, only added a heightened level of eroticism to his touch. Nothing more than a scrap of cloth divided them, and all one needed to do was peel it back, and his skin would be upon hers.
Of their own volition, her hips undulated, seeking more of him. “I-I know so much about the human body, you know, and yet, I’ve never known I could feel like this.”
Masculine pride glinted in his eyes. “Let me show you everything your body is capable of feeling, Elsie.”
He already had. He’d opened her heart in ways that she hadn’t known existed. And he would give her this most primitive of gifts.
When I want more. I want so much more with him, and from him.
Elsie fought back the wave of melancholy. She nodded slowly and turned herself back over to simply having William in this way. “I want that,” she said quietly.
With another groan, he caught her to him.
His fingers made quick work of the buttons down the back of her gown, a vague reminder that before she’d come here, he’d been a scoundrel bedding beauties, and that for him, this was surely just an extension of that act.
But God help her, mayhap she was not so very honorable after all, because she didn’t care if this made her no different than the whores or actresses to come before. She wanted to know pleasure in William’s arms. She wanted to know the offer he’d made and lose herself in his embrace.
William worked her dress down past her shoulders, guiding it lower, taking her chemise along with it, gradually exposing her skin to the warm early summer sun—and then he stopped.
Elsie remained there, her breasts bared to him, exposed, as reality slipped in.
She looked up, and all the air was squeezed from her lungs.
Heat. It blazed from William’s eyes. A look that was a tangible touch, that radiated a hungering—for her. It was for her.
You’re a fool. It would be for any woman. He’s offered you nothing more. You are no different.
“You are so beautiful,” he whispered, and slowly lowering his head, he caressed his lips around one of those pink tips.
She gasped and curled her fingertips in his hair, anchoring him close. William worshiped that peak, suckling it, laving it, until he pulled keening little moans from deep within her throat.
And then he shifted his attention to the previously neglected breast.
“William.” His name emerged as a moan, desperate and entreating.
His only response was to guide her back down upon the blanket until she lay beneath him. His hands were everywhere upon her, sliding her gown lower over her hips, along with her undergarments, until she was naked.
His breath coming hard and fast like one who’d run a great race, he drew back. A groan rumbled in his chest and lodged somewhere in his throat. “So beautiful,” he whispered and slipped a hand between her legs.
Elsie’s entire body stiffened. The air hissed between her teeth as she tightened her thighs about his palm.
“Relax, love,” he urged. “Lie back and let me love you.”
Panting, she slowly splayed her legs open.
William palmed the thatch of dark curls there, applying an exquisite pressure with his fingers in a touch that simultaneously tormented and eased that ache. Even as pressure built within her. A yearning to know… precisely the gift he’d offered.
He slipped a finger inside her wet channel.
“William,” she gasped his name, her hips shooting off the blanket.
He drew it out slowly and then continued a rhythmic stroke, until she was incapable of nothing more than feeling.
The pressure built within her like water behind a dam. Biting her lower lip, she lifted into his touch. Desperately seeking. Wanting. Needing.
She was so close. So—
Elsie cried out as he drew his hand back, and she was left with an empty void of unsated desire.
Passion darkened his gaze as he sat back on his haunches. Never taking his eyes from her, William shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it aside. His lawn shirt followed suit.
Riveted by the broad display of rippled muscles and coiled strength, Elsie shoved herself upright. “You are magnificent,” she breathed, stroking her fingertips through the light matting of dark, coiled hair upon his chest. She ran her palms down the silken fur.
He groaned, clenching his hands into tight fists at his sides.
Emboldened, Elsie circled the flat discs of his nipples, so different from her own. “Elsie,” he pleaded, reaching for her.
She went into his arms and lifted to reach his kiss. Her skin burned hot against his, her nipples pebbled against his chest. William palmed her breasts once more, lifting each to his mouth for one last, lingering kiss that stole the breath from her lungs.
William drew back. He yanked first one boot free and tossed it atop the slowly growing pile of their garments. His next boot followed, landing with a thump too close to Bear.
The dog lifted his head in affront, before lowering onto the ground once more. He emitted a loud snore.
Breathless laughs escaped Elsie and William, but instantly faded as he reached for the waistband of his breeches. Slowly, he pushed them down his hips, lower, and then he kicked them aside until he stood before her in all his masculine splendor.
Elsie went absolutely motionless. His manhood jutted long and thick from a thatch of black curls. It pressed against his flat stomach. “I’ve seen many men in a state of undress. Naked,” she corrected. She shook her head, unable to look away from that length. “Never like this.”
William chuckled, the expression more pained than amused as he reached for her. Drawing her into his arms, he claimed her mouth and brought them both back upon the blanket.
He slid his palm between her legs once again and stroked the nub hidden within her curls until she thrashed her head back and forth upon the blanket, garbled whimpers spilling from her.
Sweat beaded William’s brow as he slipped a knee between hers, urging them apart and then between her thighs. “Elsie,” he whispered against her brow. “I wish—”
“I know it hurts,” she breathed, moving her hips in little circles in a bid to alleviate the throbbing there. William continued to tease that nub of flesh. “I’ve read s-several journals about it and—” She bit her lip and arched into his touch. “What was… I… I can’t…” She closed her eyes. “Just make love to me,” she ordered.
With her name on his lips, William thrust inside.
He swallowed her sharp gasp with his mouth and went absolutely still.
Elsie’s pulse pounded in her ears as she considered the feel of him buried within her. His length throbbed and pulsed.
“I’m so sorry,” he said against the corner of her mouth.
“It did not hurt nearly as bad as I’d believed,” she said. “I’d expected more…” Elsie’s breath caught as he slowly moved.
“What was it you expected?” William’s lips teased at the tip of her right breast.
“I…” Oh, goodness. Elsie closed her eyes. “I…” Cannot remember. Cannot think. She was incapable of anything but feeling. She lifted her hips slowly, tentatively at first, meeting each measured thrust of his until the faint throbbing pain there receded and only pleasure remained.
She panted. Nay, it was not only pleasure. It was an unsated yearning more agonizing than when that barrier of flesh had given way.
Wrapping her arms about him, Elsie lifted her hips. Seeking. Searching.
“That is it,” he urged, a like desperation in his own gruff voice matching that which dwelled within her. Her body climbed higher toward some unknown precipice. “Come for me, love.”
Love.
That was it.
Elsie hurtled over that edge and exploded into a schism of color, screaming her release to the London sky. Pleasure washed through her in waves. Lapping at reason and leaving raw nerve endings of feeling vibrantly alive.
William’s shout blended with the echo of her cries as he withdrew and spilled himself onto her belly.
A moment later, he collapsed atop her, catching his weight at his elbows.
Her heart hammered wildly in a cadence that could surely, after this, never return to normal. He… nay, they two together had been… “Magic,” she mouthed to the cloud-filled blue sky. She stroked his back, a sated smile upon her lips.
“Elsie,” he whispered against her ear.
Elsie stilled, wanting that which he’d already claimed he could not give.
Waiting for it anyway.
And as they lay there, with no words forthcoming, her smile faded.
She’d lied to him and to herself.
This was not enough.
She wanted more from him.
Elsie closed her eyes.
God help me—I love him.