“Yes,” Rachel said as she thumbed the book on her lap. “Please, continue.”
***
Days bled into a sennight, and aside from their sessions, William had barely seen Rachel in those days. She was always out in London or church or forced to endure Lord Strathmore's visits. They were close to finishing her drawing in the library, and then they would move to the garden.
She was quiet on the state of courtship with Lord Strathmore, but by how wan she grew every day, he knew that it was not going well. He hated it that he could not help her because as soon as his task was done at the home, he was going to be on the move again.
And that only made a sinking sensation of guilt turn his stomach. He should have never initiated intimacy while knowing that it could never be permanent. The pain he felt knowing that Rachel was growing unhappy and that there was nothing he could do about it, whilst knowing that he was in love with her, had his heart in loops of sorrow, agony, and remorse.
He had to apologize to her as soon as he could and hurry with the last portrait so that he could put the brush to oils and run. It was terrifying how much he cared for Rachel and what was more frightening was the nights he spent awake, daydreaming about how it would be if he and Rachel were together.
Sadly, those dreams did not dissipate at daylight.
He could barely separate his dreams of seeing Rachel happy with the reality of her looking as if she were nearing the end of the world. She was quiet, hardly saying a word during the hours she spent sitting for him, and the few times he eked some words from her, they were stiff and brittle. It was as if she would shatter in half if she spoke to him.
Now, William had enough. He had to speak to her and get her to tell him why she could not look him in the eye. That evening as the rains battered the house and streamed like rivers down the windows, he found her curled up in an armchair in the library.
A roaring fire was in the grate, and she was dressed in that horrid shapeless nightgown and wrapped with a book on her lap. Her head snapped up as he closed the door behind him and stalked to her where she sat.
She was jittery, fidgeting hard enough for the book to slip through her grasp. The thud on the floor sounded like a gong and her eyes did not move from him as he approached her. William kneeled and picked the hardback before placing it on the end table before her.
He picked up a few minute trembles and smiled because she was gazing at him as if he were the only thing that existed in the world. His eyes dipped to her bottom lip that was trapped in her teeth before he went back to meet her eyes and the plainly vulnerable glimmer that lingered there.
His hand snaked out and cupped her chin. God above, he was attracted to her for reason she did not dare name or number. Rachel had artless beauty, untouched by the pounds of cosmetics so many ladies used to enhance their appearance. She had an endearing naiveté that was so rare, and she had a verve for life he hoped that had not been squashed out by her horrid parents.
His fingers tingled where he touched her, and the vulnerability faded, and she grew worried as if she were not sure the attraction he knew she felt was mutual. He understood because they had been separated for days, but she was wrong. He used his thumb to pull her lip from between her teeth.
All of it, her hesitancy, and her attraction were like setting a match to the powder keg of his suppressed desires. He lowered his head with infinite slowness and touched his cool closed lips to hers.
The tremble he had hoped to feel from her shivered through her body as the tip of his tongue teased along the seam of her lips. When she opened to him, his tongue ran through her mouth in sweeps of moist heat. She arched her body toward him.
He played with her lips and pleasured her until a trembling moan rose from her throat. He calmed his lust with tender caresses that made the lonely space around his heart swell with pleasure and satisfaction. She tasted sweet, and he tasted honey on the tongue.
He pulled away and lifted her from the chair and sat instead and pulled her down on his lap. A warning that they might get discovered and disaster would follow, but he could not care. Smoothing her hair from her shoulder, he brushed the tender skin of her throat with open-mouthed kisses and tender bites. He was careful not to mark her skin red, but he craved to taste her.
Gooseflesh pricked her skin in large strips. She threw her head back, giving him access to her vulnerable flesh, and he dined. Her fingers dug into his hair and gripped him with trembling fingers.
His mouth broke from hers. “My God, this is madness, but I’ve waited so long to taste you again.” He dropped his hands from her quivering body. “I have missed you, Rachel.”
Her body was quivering with stiff, static energy, and before she crumpled into pieces, she melted and sagged into him. “I’m sorry.”
Stroking her back, William asked, “About what, sweet?”
“For avoiding you,” she mentioned. “Because I was,I am,scared.”
“Of what?”
Pulling away, William saw rife terror in her eyes. “I am scared about how I feel about you.”
Smoothing her hair from her face, William asked, “What are you feeling?”
“I—” She paused, and her face contorted into pain. “I cannot express it.”
He took her into his arms, pressed his mouth against her hair in a gentle and loving motion. “Perhaps I can tell you what I feel. From the start, the very beginning, when I saw you, you have captivated me, and I feel overcome by you. Your spirit is indomitable, your beauty is otherworldly, and your courage inspires me. I am starting to fall in love with you, Rachel, and it scares me.”
“It scares me too,” she replied. “I never thought you felt the same.”
“I do not kiss women to play games with their hearts,” William replied. “But I admit I made a mistake. I should not have kissed you because there is no option for you and me to be together. You will be married off soon, and as soon as I finish the painting, I am off to another house, darling. I have no place to rest my head.”
