Page 41

Thirty

Blythkirk, Scotland

Simon came awake the moment his bedchamber door opened.

A shaft of yellow light from the corridor fell across the thick Aubusson rug, and he leaped to his feet while grabbing hold of the hunting knife he’d found downstairs and left on the bedside table.

Despite three days of running and one day of sanctuary at Blythkirk, he wasn’t convinced that Brody’s men wouldn’t track him down.

The estate was operating on a skeleton staff, and there would be very little to stop them should they decide to come in and get him.

A woman’s form stood in the doorway, backlit by the gas sconce in the corridor. “Simon, it’s me.”

It couldn’t be, but it was her voice. She came into the room and closed the door behind her. “Eliza?”

She walked slowly across the rug. Soft moonlight filtered into the room from the windows on the other side of his bed.

It painted her in shades of silver, giving her an almost ethereal glow.

He softened his grip on the knife and then placed it back on the table.

“How are you here?” he asked, still not completely certain she wasn’t a dream. “What time is it?”

“Around two o’clock in the morning. I was at Lord Leigh’s home when we received your telegram. I took Daisy and Henrietta there.”

“They’re safe?” He finally came to his senses and lit the small bedside lamp. Her smiling face came into view. God, he’d missed her face.

“Yes, they’re safe and being cared for. I took the train directly here as soon as we could after receiving the wire from the estate manager. Jenny, my mother, and Mr. Dunn all insisted on coming, too.”

“He mentioned he was sending the wire, but I never imagined that you’d come.” He had expected Leigh to come alone, but this was the nicest surprise he could imagine. “I can’t believe you’re here.” He reached out to touch her, but was afraid she might dissipate beneath his hand.

She closed the distance between them and pressed her cheek to his palm. “I don’t know why you’re surprised.”

He laughed. “I don’t know, either, Angel. You always seem to find me.”

She laughed, too, but there was a hesitancy about her, an uncertainty that had never been present in her before. She might very well be the most confident person he knew. “I’ll always find you…always be with you…if you’ll have me.”

That familiar ache came back to his chest, as it did so often when he was with her.

It was both painful and joyful. “Angel…” But he couldn’t finish that sentence.

He couldn’t tell her no because he was selfish.

He wanted her. She turned and placed a kiss in his palm.

“I was so afraid that I’d never see you again,” he admitted.

Before he could get ahold of himself, he stepped toward her and gathered her into his arms. Burying his face in her hair, he breathed deeply of her.

He loved how she always smelled of roses.

For the first time since he’d last held her, he felt whole.

She whispered his name over and over. She dropped the small satchel she’d been carrying to the floor and her arms went around his waist. They stood like that for several moments, holding each other and relishing that the past few days apart were over.

He rubbed his face in her hair, unable to stop himself from feeling her. He wanted to feel her all over.

“Are you hurt? Your eye looks painful.” She pulled back to look up at him.

Rouse had hit him high on his cheekbone right below his eye. It hadn’t swelled closed, but it was still swollen and hot. “It’s not as painful as it appears.”

“What happened to you when you left?”

He told her how he ran until he found clothes hanging on a line.

He’d taken a shirt and coat and kept going until the sun came up.

Then he managed to catch a ride with a vegetable farmer returning to Tottenham after delivering his load.

From there he’d taken a mail coach farther north.

Finally, after meandering for two days, he figured no one was on his trail and he deemed it safe to take the train for Scotland.

“I used the money you gave me for the ticket.” He’d nearly starved until he’d got here, but he needn’t tell her that.

He knew the precious few coins would only be enough for a ticket, so he’d stolen bits of food when he could.

A heel of bread here, a tin of beef there.

The estate manager had recognized him from his visit last summer and welcomed him.

Simon had requested that he word the wire to Leigh so that he didn’t use his name, just in case.

“I’m glad you’re safe. I was so worried about you,” she said with all the love in the world shining from her eyes.

“I worried about you,” he said, taking hold of her pointed chin.

“I had no way of knowing that you were safe and that you’d got Daisy and Henrietta.

” He dipped his head and took her lips. He’d meant for it to be a tender, searching kiss, but he was too hungry for her.

He’d been afraid for so long that he’d never see her again.

She kissed him back with the same desperate energy. Her hands tugged at his borrowed nightshirt and he obliged her. He broke the kiss to pull it off over his head. He was nude beneath, and she stepped back to look at him.

“I’ve wanted to see you like this for so long.”

“You almost did,” he reminded her. That day in the changing room at the club she had stayed to watch as long as she could before she’d closed the door. “After you left, I imagined you were still there with me.”

She grinned and a blush stained her cheeks.

He took her hand and lowered it down over his chest and the bruises that still lingered on his torso, across his flat stomach, and down to his cock.

He was hard and ready for her. As much as he wanted to take her now, he was determined to go slowly this time.

“What did you do when you imagined me there?” she whispered.

“This.”

He wrapped his hand around hers, closing her fingers tight around his erection.

He showed her how to stroke him with a slow squeezing motion that made him hiss in a breath.

He let her go and found the buttons up the front of her traveling dress.

He dipped his head to kiss her neck, savoring the heat of her skin under his lips.

Over the past days, he’d wondered if he’d ever taste her again.

He closed his eyes when she stroked him again, her touch becoming more confident.

Her jacket fell open and he slid it off her shoulders.

She stopped touching him long enough to shrug out of it so he could toss it aside.

He kissed her then, a melding of lips and tongues.

As he explored her mouth, his fingers tugged at her skirt, loosening it until he could push it down as well.

She moved back to step out of it and quickly rid herself of her underskirt and bustle.

Suddenly, he wanted nothing more than to see her.

The real her without clothes between them.

He wanted to touch every precious inch of her skin.

She turned away and worked the fastenings of her corset, and he stripped it away from her the second she was done.

His mouth found her neck. He pushed the thin strap of her chemise down her shoulder and nipped at her tender flesh.

She gasped in pleasure and he did it again.

That prompted her to back into him, the soft curves of her backside pressed firm against his cock.

“Eliza,” he whispered. He couldn’t get enough of her.

She turned in his arms and he raised the chemise over her head and tossed it aside.

His palms found her breasts. They were perfect, slightly more than a handful.

Her nipples pebbled against him. His tongue swept into her mouth, brushing against hers.

He wanted to keep kissing her, but he wanted to see her more.

He pulled back and admired the plump bit of flesh filling his hands.

“You’re beautiful, Angel. Even more beautiful than I imagined.

” He dropped one hand to trail his fingertips down over her rib cage and the soft, slight protrusion of her stomach.

He loved how soft and supple she was. How everywhere he touched was a new texture.

She watched him with her dark eyes, the lamplight picking out flecks of gold in their depths.

Leaning down, he took a firm, pink nipple into his mouth.

He’d wanted to do this in the carriage, but it’d been impossible then.

He vowed to make a feast of her tonight.

He laved her other one with the same tender attention.

Then he dropped to his knees to take off her boots.

She sat back against the side of the bed as he unlaced the first one and took it off.

He massaged the arch of her foot with his thumbs and looked up to see her smile of appreciation.

Removing her second boot, he did the same.

She made a soft moan and the sound went straight to his bollocks.

“Will ye make that sound when I’m inside ye?” He grinned up at her.

She gasped and looked toward the bed and then back at him. “I—I think so.” Her bashful smile might have put him over the edge all by itself, but then she tugged at the tie of her drawers.