Sometime after midnight, Meredith woke, needing a glass of water. As she sat back on the bed, drinking, she saw a flash from the corner of her eye. Meredith looked to the window facing the gardens.
It was near pitch black outside with only a sliver of the moon hanging in the night sky. A swaying, glowing orb moved slowly in the Crells’ gardens. Meredith frantically searched the room for her opera glasses. Once she found them, she sat down in the chair by the window, lifting them to her eyes to spy more clearly on the light.
It was a lantern that dimly illuminated the man who carried it. She did not think it was Mr. Crell at this distance, it was impossible to tell who she was seeing. The man stopped walking and set the lantern upon the ground.
What was he doing? The figure began to move about around the lantern, just visible past the garden wall that separated Darius’s garden from the Crells’.
Meredith rushed to the door and stepped into the corridor, listening for servants, but no one was in the hall and the lamps were doused. She had to wake Darius. She crossed the distance between their doors. She knocked softly, but he didn’t answer. She turned the knob, and eased the door open. She could only just make out the shape of a man sleeping in the vast fourposter bed in front of her.
“Darius,” she whispered again. Still no response.
Meredith crept closer. When her legs touched the side of Darius’s bed, she patted around until she found his body. She lightly shook Darius’s shoulder.
He made a low, disgruntled rumble. She shook him again.
“Let me sleep, love…” he muttered and then he grasped her by the waist, pulling her onto the bed as he rolled her over in his sleep, taking her with him and pinning her beneath him in the bed.
“Hmmm.” This time the noise he made was entirely more agreeable, and his lips feathered along her throat as he sleepily kissed her, eyes still closed. One of his hands moved from her waist up to cup her breast through her nightgown.
“Oh!” She hissed at the almost sharp pleasure his palm created as he kneaded her breast gently with those long elegant fingers. “Darius…” she whispered, only half-hoping to wake him.
“Yes, my darling,” he murmured sleepily. “Do you like that?” He lightly pinched her nipple through the cloth.
Meredith arched beneath him. She did like it so very much, and a large part of her wished she hadn’t woken up.
“Be a good girl and let me touch you,” he whispered as his lips nipped her throat. Then the hand on her breast slid lower, past her waist, setting her body on fire. His fingers bunched up her nightgown and soon that wicked hand was parting her legs, his fingers exploring her feminine folds. She should protest, stop this immediately, especially after what Frances had said tonight. But she also desperately wanted him to touch her.
When Darius’s fingers slid inside her, reaching a place that had never known a touch like this, the last thing she wanted was for him to stop. Yet a part of her was still rational enough to try to wake him again.
“Darius, wake up!” She pushed his shoulders, but the excitement of his touch, that simple exploration of her body, overwhelmed her. She dug her fingertips into his skin, holding onto him as he continued to kiss her neck, her collarbone, and then her lips. The sweet taste of brandy still coated his lips. His eyes were still closed, and the lethargic way he moved made her realize he was still mostly asleep.
But oh, she couldn’t find it in her to care, not when the sweetest ache was building in her womb like an unquenchable fire. And then it hit her, lights bursting across her vision, like a keg of gunpowder exploding. Unimaginable pleasure obliterated the last of her rational thoughts.
“Oh, Darius.” She whimpered in joy, still on a cloud. “Darius…”
Suddenly he stiffened above her. Darius’s head jerked up. In the dark, his usually bright blue eyes were a sliver of midnight sea, but she could still see the shock upon his face.
“Meredith?” He jerked away from her as if she’d turned into a snake lying in his bed. “What… What the devil are you doing in my bed?”
Shame and anger brought her crashing back to earth.
“I … I was just trying to wake you, but you pulled me into the bed.” She hastily jerked at her nightgown and nearly fell out of bed trying to put space between herself and a very naked Darius.
He stared at her as if she were the mad one. “I did what?”
“You pulled me into your bed,” Meredith said. Her shame deepened. It was clear from his reaction he’d been dreaming about some other woman. She was a fool. An absolute and utter fool.
“I should go—” She started for the bedchamber door, but he leapt out of bed, bedsheet pulled up around his hips, barely covering his backside as he caught her arm with his other hand. His grip was firm but gentle.
“Wait… Why did you want to wake me?”
Oh lord! She’d completely forgotten the reason she’d come here.
“There’s someone in the Crells’ garden. I saw a light. I wanted you to come with me and investigate.”
“What sort of light?”
“A lantern, I believe. But I can go alone if you do not wish to accompany me.”
