‘Yes. I mean, no. I kept myself busy,’ she answered. After all, he chose to leave her. The warmth of his lips on her cold flesh confused her thoughts. The press of his body against the flimsy nightgown set her heart racing. Her skin prickled with goosebumps as he put his mouth to her ear and breathed, ‘I think you did, but you won’t own to it. I missed you, Grace. Can’t you tell?’
She could most certainly tell, for his manhood was an iron bar against her belly. Grace was about to wriggle out of his grasp and get to the safety of her bedroom when he suddenly kissed her hard, taking her breath away. She could summon no protest as he swept her up onto the edge of the desk, sending his important papers fluttering to the floor, or when he lifted her nightgown and parted her thighs.
‘No, Rawden. I will not be with you after you go off without so much as a by your leave.’
‘I didn’t want to wake you this morning, for you looked so lovely in sleep. And I had business to attend to with some urgency, as I do now,’ he breathed, sliding cool fingers up the outside of her thighs.
‘What business?’
‘Making you cry my name as I take you, over and over.’
Chapter Thirty-Two
Grace’s instinct was to push Rawden away and go back to bed. She should reject the hunger in his eyes and the urgency of his mouth, claiming hers. But Grace could only moan and cling to him as he wriggled out of his jacket in great haste. There was a tearing sound as he tore down her nightgown, and his hands found her breasts, which had tightened to peaks of desire under his touch. His tongue flicked into her mouth, distracting Grace momentarily from the exquisite fullness of Rawden entering her. He held her forcefully against his thrusting manhood by a handful of her bottom. A hot, pulsing joy surged through her, and Grace did cry his name and he, hers.
It was a short-lived, feverish coupling, and when it was over, Grace’s inhibitions had melted like the dying candles – into a puddle of abject lust. Rawden’s hand slid into her hair and fisted as he pulled her shuddering body to his. Grace had never felt such delicious shame in her life. And when Rawden took her cheeks in his hands and kissed her forehead, she could imagine there was tenderness in his touch, even fondness in his heart.
Rawden pulled up her nightgown abruptly and withdrew from her warmth, picking up the shawl where he had cast it aside and wrapping it around her briskly. ‘Forgive my ardour. It seems to know no bounds around you,’ he muttered.
‘There is nothing to forgive, Rawden. I think I rather enjoy your ardour,’ she said, pressing her forehead to his chest in mortification at her own boldness.
‘You must go back to bed and warm yourself, Grace,’ he said, bending to retrieve his papers.
Grace hopped off the desk. She could not quite believe she had defiled it in such a way, but Rawden brought out the worst in her. ‘Are you coming?’ she asked.
He jerked his head in the direction of the door. ‘Hurry now, or you will catch a chill.’
Grace hesitated for a moment and then hurried away with the dreadful feeling that she had been dismissed. She shivered as if a draught had blown in from the sea. Was that carnal release all that Rawden wanted from her? If so, she would take it for the brief happiness it brought. She would never beg for it, nor would she reject it. It was as if their pride could only let them come together in the physical act. It was their path to an intimacy of sorts, but she could not trust in it.
She slid between her bed sheets and curled into a ball, knees to chest, Rawden’s seed sticky between her legs, making her feel like the worst slattern. Expecting a long, cold night of remorse, Grace was amazed and delighted to hear the click of the doorknob turning and then the mattress sagging as Rawden slid in beside her. His strong arms pulled her in, his belly to her back, and she smiled in the darkness. Grace turned and boldly kissed him and snuggled into his chest, slipping her hands into his shirt to feel the fuzz of warm hair. Rawden sighed and kissed the top of her head.
‘Safe now,’ he breathed. ‘No more adventures for today, you wanton.’
She hardly dared ask. ‘Did I please you, Rawden?’
He chuckled. ‘A good deal more than a rogue like me deserves. I am beginning to think that perhaps marriage is not so bad after all. Did I please you, Grace? I felt that I did?’
‘I should not have behaved in such a way.’
‘Oh yes, you should. I command you to be wanton more often. And you have worked a miracle, Grace.’
‘What is that?’
‘With you in my bed, I am almost happy to be at Marshgrave.’
‘And that is a miracle?’ she asked, Mrs Percy’s words echoing in her head. ‘His father was rotten and cruel to him.’
‘Yes,’ he replied. Rawden let out a shuddering sigh. ‘I have not stayed the night here for years. It holds bleak memories and is a draughty old pile. It softens with you in it.’ He paused. ‘As you soften, with me in you.’
Grace gasped and slapped his chest, and he tugged her in close.
‘Why are you so surly and snarling, Rawden?’
‘To keep the world at bay.’
‘I think perhaps you do it so that no one can see you have a heart beating in this chest.’ Grace kissed the warm hair at his heart, and he pulled her closer.
‘I was born here, you know. This is where I entered the world, with a lusty cry of protest apparently.’ He stroked her hair gently, the pad of his thumb brushing her forehead. ‘I was but a few days old when my father named me a bastard.’
