Page 55 of A Lady of Means (Roses and Rakes #1)

Chapter Forty-Two

Many times, Moria woke in a warm bed with soft linen sheets in a small cottage, to the feel of Devyn’s lips on her skin, his hands on her body and in her hair.

They made love again, at some point. He kissed the top of her head and pulled her so close and told her to get some sleep.

She had the same dream as many nights before, of shrouding green fronds blocking out the sun, Devyn’s laugh, and the wind blowing her hair from her face.

But this time, the man she’d dreamed about, dreamed to life, even, held her while she slept.

Now, she watched the sun alight on the sharp planes of his face, the slope of his shoulders and pectorals honed by battle with enemies both foreign and within sprinkled with golden light for the first time and likely the last. Even though Moria was curled in his arms, she felt like he was already slipping through her fingers yet again.

They’d been pulled apart by circumstance so many times, maybe it was a sign.

What they had was an aberration, it wasn’t the kind of thing that was built to last.

She had been brought up with a singular goal: a nobleman’s wife. But Devyn had been a rock in the current of her life, sending her wants rushing in a different direction. The more she wanted something, the more likely it was to be taken from her. Time had proven that.

Devyn stirred, his rose tattooed arm coming up to cradle his pillow.

Moria’s eyes stung at the sight of his tattoo, a reminder that this wasn’t an aberration. What he meant to her, what he had done for her, what he would do for her, was perfectly real.

Devyn opened one eye and looked at her. “Stop,” he said.

Moria moved closer to him in the circle of his arms. “Stop what? You don’t know what I was thinking.”

“I do. I can hear your over-thinking from here. Stop complicating this.”

If the world outside didn’t exist, or if it could maybe just go on in her absence, she’d let her calling be to stay inside the protective encircling of both of Devyn Winter’s massive arms. She’d let the tobacco and whiskey and parchment of his scent be the only thing she smelled.

She’d wear those crumpled sheets as the only bespoke couture she needed.

But several blocks from here, resided another man who’d made plans with her, who’d stood up for her, who’d been decent to her.

Several blocks from here was her family, and a woman with a book filled with words she’d written that would make their lives more difficult.

Moria’s panicked heart thudding reached her ears.

Devyn’s breathing was steady, like he was. For a moment, she let the rhythm of his breaths temper her pulse and stampeding thoughts. His hands skimmed down her arms, falling on her abdomen, stroking over her hip, then lower, to her core.

Moria gave a strangled gasp. Her entire body responded at his touch, she knew enough of love and lust to understand that she had been starved for touch, craved affection and intimacy like this; and it wasn’t something that could be replicated.

“What is it you want?” The smokey, wicked rasp of his voice curled inside her ear.

“You know exactly what I want,” she turned in his arms to speak into his lips, the linen sheets clinging to her bare skin.

“Say it,” his hands stilled, warm and powerful resting against her skin.

Moria wrapped her arms about his neck. “I want you to take me.”

Devyn raised a brow. “And then?”

Moria traced a finger over the pointed slopes of his handsome face, committing him to memory. The wine in the bottle they’d been drinking had run dry, the sand in all their hour glasses had emptied. She’d been trying to outrun the goodbye for hours, days, now. But the time was nigh.

“And then, I dress, I return home, make my excuses, and prepare to say my vows in a church in a couple of days.”

Devyn swore and sat up, the sheets covering him slipping to his waist. His exposed back bore the marks of all ten of her fingernails.

Selfishly, she hoped the last signs of what they were to each other took days to fade.

Moria swallowed the sourness rising in her throat.

How was she so willing and free with her love for him in this room, and so reluctant to give him more?

“And I will be nothing more to you than some shameful secret,” he said, eyes avoidant, hands steepled against his lips, voice thick.

Moria reached for him, but he pulled back. She felt a new kind of missing him when he held her off with a hand. “Let me,” he said. “I have to say this.”

He met her eyes, beyond her eyes, to all of her. “You are it for me.”

At his words, she shook her head, dabbing at the tears that were already running free, but he kept going.

“I didn’t use the time that I had to stand before God and everyone we care about in a church, and I will not be able to make you a duchess, or even give you half the life you’re accustomed to. But I have made plans, Moria.”

He made her look at him; his soft grasp on her chin an affectionate tether, his other hand resting on her thigh.

“I have made plans with the skills and connections I have to provide a good life, albeit not a grand one. I have said all that there is to say by now, but I can love every part of you, every day that we have left.”

Moria opened her mouth to speak, to acquiesce, to agree to whatever terms he’d just put on the table; but just as she’d known moments before, their time had already run out.

A banging sounded on the door of the caretaker’s cottage.

“My lady, are you in there? Please, it’s me, you have to come quick.”

Moria and Devyn looked from the door some feet away, to each other, in recognition. It was Ella’s voice.

Moria sank back against the pillows, defeat washed over her features.

She dabbed at her eyes and cleared her throat.

Devyn reached for her, she threw herself into his arms. She held onto him like she’d hold onto a cliff before flinging herself to the depths awaiting below.

Maybe he’d feel the desperation in her trembling hands and pressing fingernails and know this was an impossibly hard choice.

“My lady?” Ella called again, sounding frantic.

“Yes, Ella, give me one moment.”

“Don’t,” Devyn whispered, those arms she’d miss holding her against him, holding her together.

And when he removed them, silken inch by muscular inch, she crumpled. As she threw on her chemise, and he unbolted the door for Ella. She stood on shaky legs, searching through the haze of her tears for her stockings and her bodice.

“Let me, my lady,” Ella said gently, turning her to loosely lace her into her corset.

“You said I needed to be quick. Has something happened?”

Moria saw Devyn out of the corner of her eye, the arch of his back as he pulled his shirt over his head. She’d miss that view. That nibbling voice in her head said “you don’t have to, he could be yours.”

But at what cost to everyone around them?

“It’s Wednesday,” Ella elaborated as she attempted to tame Moria’s hair into something ladylike. “You’re supposed to attend a luncheon in your honor in an hour.”

Moria swallowed down her rising panic, focused on only her breaths as she pictured the faces who would be waiting for her.

She could hear their greetings and their felicitations, she could smell the tea and all the sweet meats and cakes laid out on lace tablecloths.

The luncheon was supposed to be for female friends and family of the bride only, but that number had been expanded to include so many faces she barely knew who only wanted to curry favor with a future duchess.

Her holding court over preening nobles and elites alike who no longer held any past indiscretion over her. It’s what she’d wanted.

“My honor,” Moria said, the words weaker than she’d meant, “since that’s worth so much.”

She saw Devyn and Ella exchange worried glances.

She looked down at the dress she was wearing.

Ella had brought the dress they’d selected for the event.

It was pink with pearl embellishments and two tiers of skirts.

She hadn’t even noticed Ella putting them on her.

Matching gloves adorned her hands. It was beautiful and ornate, but it was all wrong.

A hiccup started in her throat and came out as a sob before she could chase it back down.

Devyn was pushing Ella aside to wrap her in his arms.

Yes, this was right. Holding him in her arms, the smell of him in her nose and the linen of his shirt against her cheek. He was stroking her hair and he wasn’t telling her not to go, only that he loved her.

“Did you bring a carriage?” Devyn asked Ella, still holding Moria against his chest.

Moria didn’t listen for her answer. It didn’t matter if she rode in a carriage pulled by fine horses or walked several blocks, she had somewhere to be and she’d do what she’d been training for her whole life.

It would be so much easier if she could say something heartbreaking, deliver some blow that would let him see that she was just as awful as she’d warned him and he was better off without her.

Only she couldn’t think of anything terrible to deliver, the only aspersions she could hurl like stones, were at herself.

She looked up at him. “Tell me you won’t miss me.”

He shook his head. “I can’t.”

A single tear. “Lie.”

She felt the great, bracing breath he dragged in. Hated it. Hated herself.

“I can’t,” he repeated.

“My lady, we really must make haste if we are to make that luncheon. And someone might spot the carriage if it sits too long at the Clairville mews.”

She took his swarthy, beautiful face in her hands. “I wasn’t good enough, or strong enough, or brave enough for you. But as God as my witness, I have loved you. It will never be enough. But I will keep on loving you. I promise you that. You are all there is for me too.”

There was no Ella and there was no empty caretaker’s cottage, and there was no luncheon or ladies to reign over for a moment.

It stretched out and onto the shortest forever while he kissed her, forcefully and determinedly.

If her last supper were Devyn’s lips and sighs and the press of his body, she was Judas.

This was the betraying kiss. She was a traitor and a sinner of the highest order and yet as her tongue clashed against his, she knew nothing would ever feel like this.

She was still holding him by the front of his shirt when he pulled away.

He took one small hand in his dwarfing grasp, kissed it, and put it in Ella’s.

Ella’s other hand came about her waist, and pulled her toward the door, but her eyes stayed on Devyn.

She watched the bob of his Adam’s Apple as he watched her leave.

When she stepped over the threshold, he called her name, the sweetest sound in her world.

“Give ‘em, hell, Moria.”