In years to come, Nathaniel promised himself feverishly, when memory was all he had, he would be able to close his eyes and recreate the fine-grained texture of her skin. The muscular roundness of her bottom, the lithe bend of her waist, the firm, round perfection of her breasts.
He would lie in the cold solitary splendor of the ducal bedchamber at Ashbourn House and imagine the trusting weight of Bess in his arms, lovely and soft and lifting her face to his with ardent, tender passion.
Nathaniel examined every inch of her, skimming her curves with greedy palms and searching eyes, and Bess soothed him with her body, surrendering to his driving need to claim her.
When he finally let her sleep, panting softly and still trembling with the aftershocks of slaking his furious, feral need, Nathaniel held her lax body to him and stared up into the darkness.
I will be whatever Ashbourn wants, for as long as he’ll have me.
Nathaniel's brain returned to Bess’s words inescapably.
Did she mean it?
For he felt the same. Whatever she wanted, for as long as she wanted—it was hers. He was hers. And she could not have been clearer that what she wanted…was him.
All of him. The Berserker. The Duke of Ashbourn.
Nathaniel himself.
The thought was overwhelming, almost more than he could bear. But as he turned the words over and over in his mind, he knew with sinking despair that he had to heed all of Bess’s words, not just the ones he wanted to hear.
For as long as he will have me.
They both knew this would not last forever. From the start, Bess had spoken about her eventual return to Little Kissington and her life there.
And Nathaniel would stay in London. He would go to work. And go to fights. And never bring another woman to the room at the top of the stairs.
Someday, he would wed. Because what was the point of rehabilitating his family name if there was no one to pass it on to?
The thought filled him with nothing but dull dread. But it was his duty and he would do it, because there was no one else to.
But for right now, for tonight and for a little while longer, he and Bess had each other.
Nathaniel stayed awake as long as he could, intent on memorizing everything about the way she felt so that he would be able to have it again later, in his dreams.
But all too soon, exhaustion and sheer warm, animal contentment pulled him down into slumber.
It was still dark out—the darkest part of the night before the dawn—when they were awakened by loud, frantic banging on the door.
In a towering temper, Nathaniel yanked on his pants and strode to the door to kill, or at least maim, whoever dared to disturb Bess’s sleep.
It was Rufus. Face pale and grim, he held out a note and said, “You’re going to want to see this, guv.”
Nathaniel’s eyes scanned the note once, then again, his mind wiped clean of everything except its contents.
He turned back to Bess, meeting her wide eyes in the dark of the room. What he was about to say would change everything. But there was nothing he could do other than say it.
“Lucy is missing.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Bess’s world crashed to a halt.
Lucy is missing.
With three words, Nathaniel had blown apart everything.
Those three little words were confirmation that they both knew exactly who they were. Because if Bess were truly the stranger she’d assumed he thought her, some explanation for who Lucy was would’ve been necessary.
