Page 15 of Hearts at Home

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E ric’s hand stopped, and his eyes sought hers. “Left?”

“For Bath.” She wanted to scream and throw things. An unknown benefactor had made a house available for them. No more respite on rainy days. No more Eric.

Eric either didn’t care or didn’t understand. “Bath. Of course.” He pressed the cup into her hands and closed her chilly fingers around it. “Your gloves are damp. Let me take them off and dry them by the fire.”

Charis shook her head. “It does not matter. They will get wet again on the way home.” But she sat on the sofa he indicated, abandoning Ugo, who padded over to stretch out on the hearth rug with a deep sigh.

Eric knelt at Charis’s feet, and she surrendered one hand to his administrations, lifting the cup with the other to smell the coffee.

Coffee was a luxury the Fishingham household could not afford, and Charis had never acquired the taste for it, but smelling the rich odour gave her something to do while Eric peeled off one glove then rubbed her cold fingers between his two warm hands until they began to tingle as the blood returned.

Was embarrassment the source of the burning warmth that flooded her? No one ever touched her so firmly, so intimately. No one ever touched her, except her maid as required to unlace her stays or put up her hair, or perhaps her sisters when excitement caused them to forget decorum. How often she had wished that ladies could exchange the fond touches she’d observed in lesser families. A hug. A kiss to the cheek. Clasped hands.

Eric lifted her hand to his lips, then placed it in her lap. “Better. Now for the other.” His voice was strained, as if he spoke through a stiff throat. Did he dislike touching her?

“Truly, I am fine,” she assured him. “You do not need to bother.”

“Bother?” He took the little glass from her hand and began removing the other glove. “This is not a bother.” He glanced up from the hand he was now massaging, a smile lurking at the corner of his lips. “I have been dreaming of touching you, Charis, and am grateful for an excuse. Give me your coat now.”

Something intent and hot in his eyes speared into Charis. She could not account for the way the warmth moved lower, to parts that a lady never mentioned and touched as little as possible, even when washing, but of a sudden, the air seemed to disappear from the room. She inhaled sharply, and let her breath out on a sigh, casting about for something to say to loosen the strange tension in the room. He had dreamed of touching her? How could she think when those words echoed in the chaotic scramble his caress had made of her brain?

She stood to remove her coat and handed it to Eric while her mind settled. Ah yes. Bath. “Mother has been given the loan of a house in Bath. We leave today, Eric, and I do not know how long we shall stay.” She had meant her voice to be brisk and matter-of-fact, but the last words came out on a wail, and suddenly, she was enfolded in Eric’s arms.

“Dearest Charis.” He was rubbing her back with his hands, kissing the top of her head. For a moment, she froze, then—almost without her volition—she wrapped her own arms around him and held on tight, pressing herself against his warmth.

“The others have been over the moon ever since Mother told us. We will miss nothing, they say. Every morning engagement. Staying late at all the assemblies. No more days off because of the rain.” The tragedy that suffused her voice was ridiculous. She was an unnatural female to hate the activities the others so enjoyed, and it would only be until the end of the season.

Eric shifted, moving his lower torso so she was against his hip, but he didn’t put her away from him which gave her the courage to say, “No more visits with you.” To her horror, her voice warbled on the last word, and she burst into tears.

“Ah, Charis.” The rub changed to a soothing pat as she fought to contain herself. ‘Excessive displays of emotion are ill bred,’ Miss Middleton insisted, ‘and displeasing to men,’ though Eric did not sound annoyed as he murmured, “Darling Charis. We will only be separated for a short time, and when I come back, I shall...,” He trailed off.

She drew back, the better to see his face. “Come back? You’re going away, too?”

Eric lifted her chin and kissed the tip of her nose. “For a short time, so that I can...” he stared up into the corner of the room, and she nearly turned to see what had caught his attention before she realized his eyes were unfocused.

Hurt sliced through her, a pain sharper than the misery that had consumed her since Mother’s announcement yesterday evening. Eric couldn’t wait to leave her and was not prepared to tell her why.

“What do you not wish to tell me?” Oh dear. She had not intended to sound like a sulky child. She made to move away, but he would not release his encircling arms. He looked concerned, though, not irritated.

“I haven’t...” the dratted man didn’t finish that sentence either, instead, wiping his thumb to collect the tears from under her eye. “Don’t cry, Charis. I will come to you in Bath. I am courting you, am I not?”

Charis shook her head. She was by no means sure what he was doing. According to her observations of the servants, the estate workers, the villagers, and the denizens of Bath, courtship involved public tokens of affection and private displays. “You have been everything civil, Eric,” she acknowledged.

Eric raised his brows at her disappointed tone, then his lips twitched as if he fought back a smile. She narrowed her eyes at him. If he thought her affection funny...

He folded her back against his chest so she could no longer see his face. “Darling Charis, I have been a scoundrel and a rogue to use you so. You deserve to have me bringing you flowers, writing you poems, singing love songs under your balcony, sitting in your parlour pretending to listen to your mother and sisters while catching glimpses of you, stealing kisses under every twig of mistletoe and in every hidden corner.”

Charis felt a touch on the top of her head—another kiss—and his arms around her tightened, scattering her senses. She struggled to marshal the words to acknowledge that meeting in secret had been her idea; her way to prevent her mother from destroying whatever was growing between her and Eric by confining Charis to her room until the weather once more opened the roads.

But Eric spoke before she could. “Charis, I will give you all of that, I promise. In Bath, if you are removing there with your family. But first, I’m for Birmingham and your uncle. May I, Charis? May I ask your uncle for the privilege of offering you my heart and my name?”

She pulled away again so she could examine his face. Her uncle was her guardian, though he left the care of his sister’s children entirely to Charis’s mother. “Uncle Ben never argues with Mother,” she protested. But the more she thought about Eric’s plan, the more she liked it. If Eric had Uncle Ben’s permission, Mother could not refuse Eric’s courtship, though she might nag Charis to refuse an actual proposal.

If, that is, Eric really wished to marry her. “You have never even kissed me.” The words were out before she caught them. But she would not apologize. How dare he hold her at arms’ length, declare his intention to ask for her hand, and tease her with the mention of stolen kisses.

“Are you cross with me for not kissing you, Charis?” Eric’s voice had dropped to a husky purr, and again, his thumb touched her, this time tracing her lips. “I was afraid.”

Without her volition, Charis turned her head to follow his hand as he went to draw it away. “A—afraid?” she stammered.

“You and I have been alone, dolcezza mia ; no chaperone to protect your honour—and mine, for I feared that once I started I would be unable to stop. I long for you so. I imagine how soft your lips will be, how you will melt in my arms, how you would look...” he stopped, catching his lower lip in his teeth.

Charis blushed. “Did we need a chaperone, Eric?”

“You doubt it?” He lowered his face towards hers, slowly. Perhaps he was trying not to startle her. Perhaps he wanted to give her time to turn her head or to pull away. Charis waited, lifting her face to make her lips more accessible.

He was right to call himself a scoundrel, for he stopped just a couple of inches away. She waited, then when he made no further move, lifted onto her toes and closed the distance.

Eric greeted her initiative with an approving murmur, his mouth cruising in small kisses along hers. Was that his tongue sliding along the seam of her mouth? She opened her mouth to ask, and it darted inside, sending a bolt of sensation all the way to her female places. Dimly, she was aware of one large hand lifting her derrière , holding her up. Just as well. Without that support, she would have fallen from his lap, although how she had arrived in such a scandalous position she could not have said.

She essayed a foray with her own tongue and was rewarded by Eric’s groan as his hand pulled her even closer to his body, and something hard dug into her hip. She wriggled, and he groaned again, pulling away a fraction of an inch to say. “ Amore mio ,” in a strangled moan.

Charis wanted to moan herself. Her breasts felt hot and heavy, and the lower part of her torso was uncomfortable, as if each kiss pierced through to that forbidden place. She wanted. She gripped Eric’s nape and pulled him back to her mouth, and that both eased the ache and made it worse.

When Eric’s free hand first brushed and then cupped one of her breasts, she leaned into the new sensation eagerly, her own hands roaming down from Eric neck to the bare skin under his banyan. The hand behind her tugged her closer. “ Bellisima ,” Eric murmured.

Perhaps Eric could move whatever he had in the pocket of the silk trousers he wore under his banyan. “Something is digging into me,” she whispered, shifting uneasily.

It was the wrong thing to say. Eric stilled, and then lifted his head. With both hands on her hips, he shifted back onto the seat beside him, then tucked her head against his shoulder and wrapped his arms around her. “Thank you, dearest Charis,” he said.

“For the kiss?”

“Yes, definitely for the kiss. And for reminding me that you are an innocent and I am a gentleman who greatly esteems you and wishes to cherish you for all our days.” He was breathing hard, as if he had run a considerable distance, and Charis, too, felt short of breath.

“I do not understand, Eric. What...?” A thought intruded, something she had overheard when the Fishingham housekeeper came across one of the stable boys kissing the kitchen maid.

“Eric, may I ask you something?” After all, who else could she tell about what had happened here today? Her mother would lock her up forever, and anyone else in her household would immediately tell her mother.

“Of course, cara mia .” He nuzzled the top of her head, but the pleasure of his caress didn’t counter her growing worry. ‘That’s the way to get a baby in your belly,’ the housekeeper had said, and though she would love a dear wee baby, she needed to be married to the infant’s father, first.

“Eric.” She didn’t know how to ask her question, and meanwhile, she was blushing. She could feel the heat in her cheeks burning even down her neck and out to the tips of her ears.

“Charis? We are courting, my dearest. We have done nothing wrong; only expressed our love for one another, and beautifully, too. The memory of your kisses will keep me warm all the way to Birmingham and back to Bath. If you enjoyed them as much as I did, perhaps you will allow me to kiss you again when I return.”

Charis hid her face in Eric’s shoulder.

“Charis? Did I upset you? Was I too rough? Too eager?”

She responded to the concern in his voice. “I liked it,” she confessed. “But Eric, I am worried. Will I have a baby now?” She risked a look at his face.

He kissed the tip of her nose again. “Not from what we did today, my love. Not from a kiss, however passionate and delightful. But kisses such as ours lead to other things, which could indeed make you round with my child. Would you mind? Once we are wed, of course. The doctors don’t think my children are likely to have my affliction.”

“Yes. Yes, I want your babies, Eric.” She hugged him. “And if any of them have a mark, we will love that one just as much as the others.”

Her answer earned her another kiss, this one gentle, almost reverent.

“Tell me about the other things,” Charis asked, when Eric insisted on stopping.