Page 73 of Give Him a Chance

Her stomach twisted as she looked into his eyes, her fingers clasping the handle to the servants’ door a few feet from the dining hall across the hallway, and for a moment, she thought she’d gone too far. Surely, he wouldn’t want to—

Bernard ruffled his hair with his spare hand. “You know, I fell in love with you for many reasons, but your problem-solving skills was definitely one of them. It’ll be empty?”

“Mama is still in the process of hiring a new scullery maid, and Cawthorne has fallen out with Cook about it, and—”

“Less talking, more walking,” Bernard said hurriedly, opening the door and gesturing through it. “Before it becomes impossible for me to walk with a third leg.”

‘Third leg’?Lucy stared at the man who was half-walking, half-running alongside her as they swiftly traversed the servants’ corridor and starting to hasten up the servants’ staircase.

Third leg? The man is talking nonsense.

At the top of the stairs, they turned, and for a fraction of a second, Lucy saw a long, thick outline of something not usually present by Bernard’s groin.

Her face burned.Oh. That third leg.

It did not take them long to rush down the servants’ corridor and reach the empty bedchamber. Lucy scrabbled with the door as they closed it behind them—yes. There was a key.

Slowly, pulse hammering and knowing this was the very last chance to turn back, she twisted the key. The lock clicked.

When Lucy turned around, pulse still thrumming in parts of her she had never felt before, it was to see Bernard looking at her like—

Her breath caught in her throat. Like she were the most precious, most beautiful person in the world. No one had ever looked at her like that. No one had ever looked atanyonelike that.

“Bernard,” Lucy whispered. “Take me.”

He stepped forward boldly, his hands cupping her face momentarily as he kissed her, but his fingers swiftly moved down to her gown, tugging at its laces, slowly unbuttoning, and his kisses were so fierce and yet so reverential that Lucy hardly noticed when her gown slipped from her shoulders and pooled around her feet.

“So beautiful,” Bernard murmured, his exhale rippling across her skin.

Lucy shivered as her quivering hands reached up and slowly pushed his jacket from his shoulders and down to the carpet beneath them. Kisses were exchanged, breathlessly and mingled with laughter, as she undid his shirt buttons and he tangled with her stays.

“These brutish things should be burned, as far as I’m concerned,” Bernard quipped as he finally managed to untangle her and threw it to the side, her chemise and drawers following within moments after.

“That, I think, would be your first criminal act.” Lucy gasped, his fingers trailing down the gap between her breasts, suddenly aware of her nakedness but finding herself—much to her own astonishment—unashamed. “Criminal damage.”

Bernard chuckled as he allowed her to unbutton his trousers, stepping out of them and—

Lucy gasped.

Well. She was no fool. Evelyn had managed to sneak into a life drawing class once, just the once, and Lucy had accidentally on purpose found the sketchbook in question and stared, open-mouthed, at the way that gentlemen were built so entirely differently.

But Bernard—

He was magnificent. There he stood, confident in his nakedness in a way Lucy had thought impossible, his manhood jutting up proudly between a thatch of hair, and she wanted to touch it.

She wanted to taste it.

“Now, it’s time for you to get a little pleasure,” Bernard said quietly, offering out his hand.

Fine, perhapsthiswas the very last moment that she could retreat, Lucy observed hurriedly, but she didn’t want to.

She wanted Bernard. They would be married. Of course they would. They loved each other, and he was a gentleman, not a criminal—there was no impediments now.

So why not enjoy the fruits of marriages earlier than planned?

He laid her down gently on the unmade bed, her whole body quivering at the way his skin fluttered against hers. Lucy tried to smile up at the man she adored, but her nerves got in the way.

“You can ask me to stop at any time,” Bernard said quietly, leaning on his elbow while his other hand gently brushed around her nipple, causing it to bud.