Over breakfast, he told her what he’d discovered about her cousin Anabel.
“You think she might really be in Ireland?” Lucy asked, hopeful for her aunt’s sake.
“It seems likely they would go first to his family. At least until they make plans. That is, unless…”
She knew what he wouldn’t say. That their relationship might not have survived the pressures that would have been brought to bear on them both. Once alone, would their love remain strong? Would his family accept her after the divorce? Would Anabel be happy living such a different life away from her family? Lucy hoped so.
After breakfast, Lucy packed her few things into the portmanteau. At the knock on the door, she expected the bootboy to take down her luggage. But when she opened it, Hugh stood there with such warmth and longing in his eyes. Lucy reached up and grabbed his coat.
He stepped into the room and put his arms around her, his head resting against hers and his breath stirring the curls at her neck. “I should not be here,” he murmured, straightening to gaze at her, “I must tell you…”
She reached up to touch his cheek. “You can tell me all of it, later, Hugh. I want you to take me to bed.”
“Lucy,” he groaned, his hands on her shoulders holding her at a distance. “I shouldn’t be here with you, without a chaperone,” he said with a laugh. “I have hopes that I will soon be free to come to you, to claim you, sweetheart. But we must wait a little while yet. Not until Miss Ashton is married and leaves England. I promised her father.”
“Who is Miss Ashton to marry?” Surely, she hadn’t found anyone as wonderful as Hugh.
“Our vicar, Mr. Benson.”
Instead of an earl?“Will her parents agree?”
“Isabel is with child. It is necessary to be discreet until she and her vicar sail for Ceylon.”
Lucy’s eyes widened. “A child? Ceylon? Heavens. Well, I wish them well.” What a good man Hugh was. He didn’t seem angry about Miss Ashton’s actions at all. She coiled her arms around his neck. “Kiss me, Hugh.”
She leaned against him, feeling his strength and the hardness of his body. He brushed his lips against hers, then captured her mouth in a long, passionate kiss. When he broke away, she moaned and reached up to stroke his hair back from his forehead. “You don’t want me?”
“Want you? With every breath I take,” he said, his voice low. At the passionate plea in her eyes, he took her hand and led her over to the bed.
Lucy’s breath quickened, and she sat quickly before her knees gave way. Her heart beat madly and her fingers ached to touch him.
“You don’t wish to be chaste at your wedding? Everyone will assume you are. It will be a lie.”
“This lie doesn’t matter, Hugh.”
He joined her on the bed, his muscular arms and fresh cologne enveloping her, as he pressed kisses along the sensitive skin beneath her ear.
Lucy’s breasts tingled.
Hugh’s hands shaped her breasts through her gown, his thumbs stroking her nipples into hard peaks. “You are so very lovely, Lucy.”
She closed her eyes at the wonderful feeling, pleased that he thought so. “Shall I take off my gown?”
“No, sweetheart. As much as I’d enjoy it, I won’t risk it. I want you too much.”
She was offering herself to him, and he rejected her? Did he not truly desire her?
A glance at her expression must have told him of her feelings. “Lucy, I think we should wait. I shall have that pleasure on our honeymoon.”
She sighed, but she had to agree with him. She was terribly inexperienced in these matters.
“Lucy,” he murmured as he rested his hands on each side of her head, then bent and claimed her mouth in a long, passionate kiss.
She stroked her hands over his shoulders, rendered slightly dizzy by the strength and warmth of his hard body.
He eased away and untied the strings on her gown. Then he pulled the bodice and her stays down to uncover her thin shift, revealing the thrust of her breasts and pink nipples beneath. He cupped a breast, while he kissed the pulsing hollow at the baseof her throat, then trailed hot kisses down to circle a nipple through the thin lawn. Her thoughts fragmented as he tended to the other breast, while tweaking the first with his fingers.
She moaned and lay back with abandon, unable to think of anything but him and how he was making her feel.
