“He’s conscious. He’s eating. When he met Nathan, he seemed… confused.” Lady Kimpton blinked quickly. “I, however, cried a river,” she said with a self-deprecating smile.
Brock glanced over to his father. He and Irene sat with their heads together, chatting animatedly. How he wished he could have saved Rachel. He took heart in feeling her spirit. It was clear, to him at least, that Irene would bring his father great joy. Her intellect was amazing, her beauty appealing. But it was her demeanor that truly set her apart. Her imperturbableness, her quiet fearlessness, and her unshakable fortitude presented an enchanting young woman who would have him beating away the suitors in a distant future that would hurl itself in his path long before he knew he and Ginny would be ready to relinquish her to.
He raised Ginny’s left hand to his lips. “Shall we, my marquise?”
Sunlight streamed through a crease in the curtains the next morning and beamed Ginny in the eye. Groaning, she tugged at the sheet that wouldn’t budge.
“Surely you don’t think you’ll be able escape my bed so quickly after having been so recently installed?” John Brown, Lord Brockway, announced, rolling on top of her.
He swallowed her response in a pleasing kiss that spiraled her senses into ecstasy. Contentment unfurled through her, teasing and leading her on a flowing path of delight. Breathing him in was akin to sipping an intoxicating elixir. She ran her palms up over sinewy muscular arms that made her feel safe. Safe. Protected. Loved.
His lips trailed the column of her neck down the center of her chest, moving from one breast to the other. His erection swelled between her legs, and she felt herself go damp. He kissed and licked each scar her body wore with a tenderness that brought tears to her eyes. The cool brush of his fingers on her skin left a burning trail of desire. She moved her hand lower, wrapping her fingers around his length. His tormented groan was an invitation. She spread her legs wider and guided him to her entrance.
“Dear God,” he breathed. “I’ve died, haven’t I? Am I in hell or heaven?”
“You decide, my lord.” She bit his shoulder, startling him, and he was instantly sheathed deeply within her.
He used his fingers to press the top of her sex, sending showers of sparkles blinding her and her pulsing around his erection. “I love you, John Brown,” she whispered. “Don’t ever leave me.”
“Never,” he panted. His plunges grew frantic. She locked her legs around his buttocks, bringing him deeper. “I’ll never leave you.” Harder and faster, he pushed and withdrew. “I… love… you… too.” He punctuated with each thrust. Until his neck grew taut, his muscles roping with tension. She matched each thrust with thrilling eagerness, until she shuddered beneath him in a quivering mass. His climax followed seconds later.
He collapsed beside her, his hard breaths in sync with hers. His hand splayed hers flat against his chest.
Ginny turned on her side, facing him, and ran her fingers over his sweat-sheened torso. “Tell me about Rachel,” she said softly.
“Ah. She was an engaging child. She had Celia’s exuberance and Irene’s practicality and dry wit.”
Ginny smiled. “You think Irene has dry wit?”
He returned her smile, and it was like bathing in warm scented water. “I do indeed.” The smile disappeared, and the tautness returned. “She was twelve when she disappeared. My father sent for me—”
“Ten years ago,” she whispered, remembering the note that had fallen from his pocket. Guilt and anguish consumed her. She swallowed them back with the bile that rose. He needed her to hear this, and she would see it through.
“Yes. The duke was beside himself. He’d learned everything he could. He set Bow Street on it. Rachel had been put aboard a ship discovered to be in the business of slave tradding. I was too late to catch the boat, and there was no time to lose. I followed in another boat. Weather played a villainess part. We were thrown off course by a few days. It was a devastating delay. I tracked her to Ponte de Lima. I was told she had been sold to a nomadic clan partial to young English girls. I found that group. A clan of Romani.”
With a shallow breath, Ginny laid her head on his shoulder, dreading, knowing what she feared was the inevitable outcome.
“They found her and buried her. She’d been brutalized from the traffickers who’d kidnapped her in the first place.” He ran a palm over his face. “I’d gotten word of your nuptials to Maudsley by that time. I made it back for just a short time, you remember? I was hurt and devastated. So I left again. I’d let down my father. I’d lost you.”
She brought his hand to her lips, unable to stem her tears.
“For the next three years, the Romani drew themselves around me. I lived with them, worked with them, ate with them. God, Ginny, they saved my life. The grief was unbearable.” Quiet surrounded them for a time, then Brock leaned over and brushed his lips over hers.
He rose from the bed and grabbed a silk brocaded robe, then tugged the bellpull. There was a soft tap at the door before it cracked open. “Timms, tea and coffee.”
“Yes, my lord. In the meantime, there is something in today’s post your father thought you should see.” She set the paper on a table near the door and backed out, closing the door on her exit.
Brock strolled over, picked up the paper, and scanned it. Emotion, from surprise to stony resolve, flittered across his expression.
“Good heavens. What is it?”
He strode over and tossed the print to her.
Nothing stood out at her cursory gloss-over. Then she whispered, “Oh my.” She read aloud. “The fifth Earl of Griston, Loren Spears, was committed to Bedlam on the birthdate of his thirty-third year, the twenty-seventh of July, 1819, due to a brain fever. The fifth earl’s son, Winslow Spears, Viscount Yates, will assume his sire’s duties through his appointed guardian, one Mr. Julian Featherstone of Northumberland.”
Another soft tap at the door sounded and the door flew back before either of them had a chance to answer. Ginny grabbed the sheet and held it to her chest as Celia bounded in. “Ladies, you will step outside and wait for permission to enter.”
“But, Mama—”
