She stayed where she was as he crossed the room and donned his cloak and took his hat in one hand. He would not even have to light his lantern. There was still a grayness visible through the curtains. It was not quite dark. He had not been here long at all. Far less than an hour.
He turned toward her, presumably to say good night. He was no longer smiling. And he did not immediately say the words.
Neither did she.
They merely gazed at each other, half a room apart.
Lydia got to her feet but hesitated even as she considered going to hold the door open for him and watching him leave.
“Lydia,” Harry said softly.
“Harry.” Her voice sounded unnaturally high-pitched. And she took one hesitant step toward him.
He set his hat down on the table beside the door without watching what he did and took one step toward her.
And then somehow they were in each other’s arms.
Nine
Harry closed his eyes and held her to him, breathing in the scent of her hair and her skin, feeling the slender, shapely lines of her body, warm and supple against his, allowing desire to wash over him, feeling an answering longing in her. Andlongingwas just what it was. It was more than lust, more than simple desire.
He murmured her name against her ear, pressed his lips to her temple, and feathered kisses down her cheek until she tipped back her head and looked at him, her eyes huge with dreams and yearning. “Lydia?”
“Don’t leave.” Her arms were about him beneath his cloak. She was pressed to him from shoulders to knees. She would be able to feel the evidence of his desire. “Harry, don’t leave. Stay.”
He kissed her, parted her lips with his own, pressed his tongue deep into her mouth, drew the tip across the roof of her mouth, urged on by the shudder that ran through her and the sound she made deep in her throat. He was not totally mindless, however. He could still wonder if she was going to regret this. If he was. He looked into her eyes again, their faces mere inches apart.
“Will you regret this?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “But I must let you know,” she said, “that I have never done this—”
He stopped her words with his mouth. “I know,” he said. “I know you are not a woman of loose morals, Lydia. It does not need to be said.”
She gazed at him for a few moments longer, drew breath as though to say more, but then shook her head slowly. “I do not want you to go.”
And so he stayed. He unbuttoned his cloak, flung it over the back of the sofa, noticed that the fire, though it had burned low, was not out, and went to set the fireguard about the hearth. The dog had got up and trotted into the kitchen to lap water from her bowl. He took up one of the candles from the mantel and turned back to Lydia. She was standing where he had left her, but she turned without a word and led the way into her bedchamber. He followed her, shut the door, and set the candlestick down on the dressing table.
It was not a large room. There was just space enough for the bed and dressing table, and a small chest of drawers on one side of the bed. Another door probably led to a dressing room. It was a feminine chamber, though not frilly. It suited her. The cotton curtains had a cheerful floral design, and the bedspread looked as if it had been hand embroidered with flowers to match the curtains.
Lydia turned in to his arms, and he knew as soon as she kissed him again that she had not changed her mind, that her eagerness for this had not waned but rather intensified. She was hot and yielding. And it was evident that her slim shapeliness owed everything to nature and nothing to stays. She wore none. He unfastened the two buttons at the back of her dress, high enough that she would be able to reach them herself without the services of a maid, and eased the dress down over her shoulders and down her arms and body. She allowed it to drop to the floor.
His fingers dispensed with the pins that held the bulk of her hair in a knot on the back of her head, and it came cascading about her shoulders and down her back, a dark cloud of unruly glory. He combed his fingers through it, held her head cupped between his hands, gazed into her eyes, and kissed her again, both of them openmouthed now.
Both hot.
“Harry.”
Her hands were unbuttoning his coat and then his waistcoat and pushing them off his shoulders so when he straightened his arms they landed on the floor behind him. He dispensed with his neckcloth, dragged his shirt free of his waistband, pulled it off over his head, and sent it to join his coat. He heard her inhale slowly as he set his hands at her waist and held her at arm’s length while he gazed at her, wearing only a cotton shift now, which ended just above her knees, and her stockings and slippers.
How had it ever been possible for her to render herself invisible?
She was nothing short of gorgeous.
He went down on one knee, rolled down her stockings one at a time, and drew each off her foot after first removing the slipper. Then he stood, slid the straps of her shift off her shoulders, and let it slide down her body to pool about her bare feet. He stood back again to look at her. And she gazed steadily back at him, though the flickering light of the candle from the dressing table showed him that her cheeks were rosy with color.
“You are so very beautiful,” he told her.
She spread her fingers briefly in front of herself before curling them into her palms. She had been going to unbutton him at the waist but had lost the courage. He removed the rest of his clothes himself while she sank her teeth into her lower lip.
