He gestured behind him with the base of the hammer. “Uncovering the glass.”
“I can see that,” she answered, stepping into the room. “But why?”
He shifted self-consciously before meeting her eyes. “For you.”
Her suddenly limp fingers released their hold on the door, and it swung closed behind her with a soft thud. “What?”
“I have you trapped in a windowless tomb,” he answered simply. “It isn’t right. And I’m doing what I can to fix it.”
She stared at him, unsure how to gauge his sincerity. “Mr. Roper told you he thought I was leaving, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” Mr. Waldegrave admitted. “But I’d already begun this project well beforehand. I worked late at night, after the sun was long set. I’d forgotten how beautiful these pictorials are. I just... I wanted to surprise you.”
Her eyes tracked from the pile of recently removed planks against one wall to the large expanse of uncovered stained glass behind him. Now that there was less obstructing wood, the pattern of the reds and blues and yellows lost their abstraction and the meaning became clear. This was a Renaissance-style Bible passage. Three men silhouetted against the sky approached the tail of a star set on high.
Beautiful did not even begin to describe the artistry. And shocked did not even begin to describe Violet’s state of mind. It was true. Hehadbegun this project long before Mr. Roper prevented her supposed escape. She had stumbled across this very room whilst fleeing him.
For no reason except to pleaseher, he had left his daughter’s bedside night after night, hammer in hand, painstakingly removing nails from layer upon layer of thick boards.
That was not something one did out of a sense of employer-to-employee obligation. Spending days and hours toiling with a hammer would not occur to most people, even for a friend. Her skin flushed with warmth. The only reason a man like Mr. Waldegrave would devote himself to tearing down part of his home as a gift for someone like her would be because hecared. Her heart swelled with hope.
He shrugged and glanced away. Clearly mistaking her humbled silence for being unimpressed with his efforts, he tossed the hammer atop the closest board and dug into his pocket for his change purse.
“But here,” he said quickly. “Never mind the windows. I’ve been meaning to give you a bonus, and now is as good a time as any. All I have is... four sovereigns. I—I’ll give you the rest next week with your wages.”
“The rest?” She shook her head, unable to believe her ears. She crossed the room to stand before him beneath the stained glass, hoping the filtered moonlight would help him see the joy in her heart. “How much more money do you plan to give me?”
“All of it,” he replied without hesitation, a sheepish smile curving his lips. “As much as you want. How much would you like?”
“None of it,” she answered without thinking. She glanced away as her cheeks heated. “Are you bribing me to stay?”
“Yes.”
She gazed up at him. “For Lily’s sake, or yours?”
“I don’t know anymore,” he answered hoarsely.
Foolish man. How could she not surrender to such a confession? The most honest gifts came from the heart, not the coin purse. He had ensnared her from the first moment he’d extracted the first nail.
“Money is rarely the answer,” she said softly, and lifted her hands to his chest.
The coins clinked back into his pocket. His hands gripped her hips and pulled her to him. “Then whatdoyou want?”
Was the truth not written in her eyes? She rose on her toes so that her answer would whisper directly into his ear. “You.”
His breath caught and he took her mouth with his, roughly, tenderly, as if he wanted to imbue the moment with romance but was too starved for her kisses to go slow. His hands were in her hair, stroking the still damp curls she hadn’t had time to tame. His tongue made wicked promises that sent a stab of longing from her heart to her core.
She leaned into him, helpless against the onslaught of sensation and heedless of where it might lead. She absolutely, positively, did not deserve him, but his hands and mouth offered a palette of seductions she was powerless to resist.
Not that she wished to stop. She willed the embrace to go on forever. Dimly, she knew that if he thought of her even once as the untouchable governess or the puritanical angel, the moment would shatter like so much colored glass. If she wished him to see her as a woman, as a mate, she would need to show him, to prove to him, his desire was more than reciprocated.
With a self-consciousness made all the more erotic by its very brazenness, she pressed her breasts against his chest. The forbidden sensation tantalized with each agonizingly deliberate brush of erect nipples against thin layers of clothing. Being bold was not something she’d ever had to do before, and the courage it required was as stimulating as it was terrifying.
She need not have worried. He did not recoil from her touch. Instead, he gasped hungrily and slid his hands to cup her buttocks, pressing her to him even harder. She thrilled with the sensation of heretofore unknown power. The proof of his arousal throbbed against her pelvis, and she could not help but rub her body against it again and again. She loved that she was affecting him physically, emotionally, just as he affected her. But how could she let him know she needed more?
She slid her hands behind his head, tangling her fingers in his hair and telling him with her quickened breath and straining nipples that she was his, that she wanted him and wished to give him pleasure, that she was his to command. Hesitantly, she glided her hands from his hair to the musculature of his shoulders, pulling him to her. Although his kisses never lessened, she would need to be bolder still if she wanted more. And, oh, did she want more.
She peppered a trail of hot kisses down his neck, down his chest, intending to show him precisely how much pleasure her mouth could bring. To set his body afire the way hers burned for him.
