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He just stared at her for the briefest of moments, before releasing a breath. “I have asked him to remain downstairs. He is with Dorchester in the kitchen. I just wanted to apprise everyone of what happened, as opposed to springing a surprise on you. You may not have listened to what actually occurred had you seen him here.”

She was right in her assumptions of both of them. Orris found that oddly comforting. “Get him. I want to speak to him.”

Samuel did not argue for once. Instead, he left the room and headed for the stairs.

“What do you want us to do, Orris?” Myrtle asked, somehow ahead of Orris’s next request.

“Could you occupy Mama for me, please? I need time with him. Alone,” she said, unsure of how they would receive the request. They were a mix of traditional and modern, sometimes resorting to the old rules. Whatever they may think, whatever they may say, she had to try. She was suddenly starved for him. He was not forgiven, but part of her wanted to comfort him. To find out his brother may have been plotting his murder, she wanted to know what he was feeling. Even if he hated him.

“Of course,” Myrtle said.

Violetta opened her mouth in what was likely to be opposition to the notion, but Myrtle walked around the room and took her by the arm.

“They need some time. We shall not be far. Orris will not leave with him.” Myrtle glanced back at her from her position next to Violetta. “Will you, Orris?”

“No, no, I shall not leave the premises. I just need to speak to him,” she said.

“We will keep your mother downstairs occupied and tell her you had another headache. She shall probably want to know about Myrtle’s courses and the queen’s guess, anyway. That should keep us busy for at least half of the hour,” Gladys said. “I do hope he is wrong about his brother. There is no other way to say this… His brother is a shite if everything turns out to be true.”

“Your language is a bad as Orris’s,” Violetta said, before turning and leaving the room.

“I shall steer Samuel away as well, so you may have a moment to discuss the situation,” Myrtle said, giving Orris’s arm a squeeze before she walked out, Gladys leaving on her heels.

There was no explanation for Violetta’s sudden affection for a man she hardly knew. Other than the obvious. Desperation. She was clearly affected by the pressure to become a wife. This knowledge did nothing to temper her frustration with the whole of the situation.

For a moment, Orris considered what she might say. She would demand an apology, then she would lament over them being only friends and his unwarranted dismissal of her. Finally, she would demand to help him out of his situation.

She paced for what seemed to be hours. Exactly how far were the kitchens? She had navigated the back stairwell many times and it had never taken her so long.

When the door finally creaked open, he stepped inside, closing it behind him at what seemed a snail’s pace.

The moment it snicked into place, she came apart. Hot tears fell without warning. “You could have been killed going on your own,” she said, her voice a whisper, yet one that roared.

“Better than you being the one harmed,” he said, his voice more a growl than anything else.

“I will not be shut out again,” she warned. None of her words were what she had rehearsed in her mind.

“When it comes to your safety, I shall not bargain. You are the only woman I have ever… could ever lay down my life for. And I will do it every time. So no, I cannot promise I will not shut you out again. If there is a whiff of anything dangerous, I will carry you on my back over shards of glass to protect you.”

Orris opened her mouth to make another demand but found there were no more. He was infuriating. Stubborn. He was nothing like anyone she had ever met. Yet she wanted him more than her next breath.

The air between them thickened as they held one another’s gaze.

“I apologize for speaking to you so harshly, but I wanted you to leave. I said whatever might accomplish the task, and with each syllable, I felt myself die more and more…”

Orris could not take it anymore. She ran to him, wrapped her arms around him, then yanked him closer. “Shut up,” she said, her breath coming out in a rush.

Without waiting for her to close the meager distance between their mouths, his crashed onto hers, the desperation to feel him, to touch him winning out over her senses.

The kiss started out as slow, sensual, one that took its time to drag them into the throes of passion where whatever control they struggled to maintain fled, leaving them hungrily taking one another in. She knew he was walking them back across the room, the moans and gentle whimpers filling the room.

Against her ass, she felt the desk dig into her flesh until he lifted her and sat her atop the hard, cool wood. Without thinking, she opened her legs and allowed him to stand between them. Breaking away, she looked at him, a gentle nod indicating they should proceed with the act so dangerously close to beginning.

A groan erupted from Abram’s chest and his hands moved quickly to raise the folds of her dress and undergarments. The tear of muslin ripped out into the room, but Orris gave way to not a single care.

Not wanting to appear idle, she pulled the buttons at the top of her bodice open, the pale-blue material spreading to reveal her heated, deep-brown flesh. Abram pressed his mouth to her skin just as his fingers teased the supple folds revealed after he’d torn away her garters and stockings.

He rubbed the tight nub of her center at a pace so blindingly fast, she saw stars before her eyes. Pressing his mouth against hers, he swallowed her cries. With precious care, his finger slipped inside her, and Orris felt a current of passion swell inside her.